Walmart’s "Tech Stock" Illusion

Walmart is currently trading at valuations typically reserved for high-growth technology stocks rather than traditional retailers. The stock trades at approximately 40 times forward earnings, which is significantly higher than its historical average of roughly 23 times. Investors are betting on Walmart because its massive investments in supply chain and digital infrastructure are finally yielding high-margin returns. Despite the optimism, Walmart still lags significantly behind Amazon in key scale metrics and lacks a non-retail growth engine (like AWS). If Walmart cannot deliver tech-like hyper-growth, it must prove it can offer "Costco-like" consistency to justify its premium. -Chart from WSJ