Wal-Mart is about to do it again.
Yesterday, the retail giant came within $0.20 of making an all-time record high.
This past July, WMT made a record high of $75.24…
Yesterday it traded at a high of $75.04.
It’s safe to say that Wal-Mart will eventually reach new levels — and based on the chart alone, Wal-Mart will probably be in record territory within the next two weeks:
If you’re keeping score at home, Wal-Mart is now up a mind-blowing 149,000% since going public back in 1972.
It’s up 25% year to date… and up almost 50% for the year.
When you look at the numbers, I don’t see any reason for Wal-Mart’s capital appreciation to end.
And the numbers are downright staggering…
In the past year, Wal-Mart has added 52 million square feet of retail space. That’s more than 1,000 units opened in the past year.
In total, Wal-Mart operates 10,130 retail units under 69 different names in 27 countries.
The company controls 1,037 billion square feet of retail space worldwide. In fact, Wal-Mart’s retail space is 56% bigger than Manhattan.
Wal-Mart logistics has the largest retail trucking fleet in the United States: 7,110 trucks, 55,761 trailers, and more than 7,000 drivers that go 700 million miles per year…
To put that into perspective, Wal-Mart trucks drive the equivalent of 1,465 round-trips to the moon (average earth/moon distance is 238,900 miles)…
Or 10 round trips to Mars when it is closest to Earth (distance of 33,926,856 miles)…
Or 1.8 one-way trips to Jupiter when it’s closest to Earth (distance of 391,000,000 miles).
Wal-Mart’s workforce is huge: 2.2 million employees — and growing daily.
In fact, the company employs more people than make up the population of these nations:
|
143 |
Namibia |
2,104,900 |
August 28, 2011 |
0.03% |
2011 census |
|
144 |
Latvia |
2,070,371 |
March 1, 2011 |
0.029% |
2011 census |
|
145 |
Macedonia |
2,059,794 |
December 31, 2011 |
0.029% |
Official estimate |
|
146 |
Slovenia |
2,058,170 |
September 13, 2012 |
0.029% |
Official population clock |
|
147 |
Botswana |
2,024,904 |
August 22, 2011 |
0.029% |
2011 census |
Its customer base is the envy of corporate America: About 100 million customers — nearly one-third of the U.S. population — visit Wal-Mart’s stores in the U.S. each week.
Globally, 200 million customers will visit a Wal-Mart and/or Wal-Mart-owned store each week.
You know me — I love putting these statistics into perspective and comparing them to easily understood metrics…
In terms of customer base, if Wal-Mart were a nation, its population would be bigger than:
|
5 |
Brazil |
193,946,886 |
July 1, 2012 |
2.76% |
Official estimate |
|
6 |
Pakistan |
180,655,000 |
September 13, 2012 |
2.57% |
Official population clock |
|
7 |
Nigeria |
166,629,000 |
July 1, 2012 |
2.37% |
UN estimate |
|
8 |
Bangladesh |
152,518,015 |
July 16, 2012 |
2.17% |
Official estimate |
|
9 |
Russia |
143,142,000 |
July 1, 2012 |
2.03% |
Official estimate |
|
10 |
Japan |
127,570,000 |
August 1, 2012 |
1.81% |
Monthly official estimate |
|
11 |
Mexico |
112,336,538 |
June 12, 2010 |
1.6% |
2010 census |
|
12 |
Philippines |
92,337,852 |
May 1, 2010 |
1.31% |
2010 census |
For the past 12 months, Wal-Mart has paid out $11.3 billion in dividends to its shareholders.
The $11.3 billion in dividends is like liquidating the entirety of Campbell Soup Company ($10.96B market cap), Alcoa ($10.27B market cap), Xerox ($10.12B), Western Union (11.28B), or Nordstrom (10.01B) — and giving it back to investors.
The $11.3 billion in dividends would be like giving away 1.3x Canada’s silver reserves every year (7,000 metric tons 11 x 35274 ounces per metric ton x $34.6 per ounce of silver = $8,543,362,800 est. value of Canadian reserves).
Wal-Mart’s dividend yield is 2.5% per year.
But I’ve found a unique way to boost Wal-Mart’s dividend by 100%…
So instead of getting a 2.5% dividend check from the retail behemoth, you’ll get over 5% — and you get that check every single month.
Don’t worry, this isn’t about options, futures, ETFs, or even DRIPs. It’s a very simple way to increase your dividend check.
I’ll show you how to do it here.
Forever wealth,
Brian Hicks
Check us out on YouTube!Brian is a founding member and President of Angel Publishing. He writes about general investment strategies for Wealth Daily and Energy & Capital. For more on Brian, take a look at his editor’s page.
