Walmart price target lowered to $177 from $187 at Evercore ISI

Evercore ISI analyst Greg Melich lowered the firm’s price target on Walmart to $177 from $187 and keeps an Outperform rating on the shares. While the firm doesn’t see the algo of 3%-4% sales growth and operating income growth at twice that pace as “broken,” this quarter’s 4.9% U.S. comp and flattish EBIT dollars “raises questions of execution hiccups,” the analyst tells investors in a post-earnings note. However, the firm believes that Walmart will lever next year despite likely comp moderation as automation gains scale, wage expense moderates, and high margin advertising and alternative revenues scale, the analyst added.