Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Lunch, our afternoon update on today's market action news and analysis.

Good afternoon, today's Thursday, November 16th, and I'm your host, Kim Kahn. Our top story so far.

Walmart is sounding a warning on retail spending and pricing power as it issues results today. Due to its sheer size, Walmart's performance is often

considered a proxy for the U.S. consumer, and its full-year profit guidance brought out

the Bears. For the numbers, the retailer reported U.S. total comparable sales up 4.9% in fiscal Q3 to top the

consensus estimate for up 3.4%.

Looking ahead, Walmart raised its full year 2024 sales guidance to a range of 5 to 5.5 percent,

from a prior range of up 4 percent to 4.5 percent.

But adjusted EPS outlook of 640 to 648 while above prior

outlook, misconsensus at 650. In an interview following the release,

CEO John Rainey said,

Halloween was good overall, but in the last couple of weeks of October,

there were certainly some trends in the business that made us pause and kind of rethink the health of the consumer. But CEO Doug McMillan said while

the company would like to see more and faster pockets of disinflation, falling

prices may actually be on their way. We may be managing through a period of

deflation in the months to come, he said. While the focus has understandably

been on inflation for a while, a few people, most notably Arc Invest

founder Kathy Wood, have been calling deflation a bigger risk.

Wood says the Fed overdid it in its tightening cycle.

Walnut shares are down more than 5% in today's trading, but the initial reaction from Wall Street Bulls is that the

company is well positioned to ride out a downturn in consumer spending and may even be

in a position to pick up market share. Both Jeffries and Citi recommended that investors snap up shares on any weakness.

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