WMT: The Defensive Fortress Worth 44x Earnings
Walmart just posted $190.7 billion in quarterly revenue while the S&P 500 was busy losing its nerve. That single number — the largest quarterly haul in American retail history — tells you everything about why institutional money is rotating into WMT during the March 2026 selloff. At $120.16 per share and a 44x trailing PE, Walmart is not cheap by any historical standard. But cheap is relative when the alternative is catching falling knives in growth stocks. The company's fiscal 2026 full-year revenue hit $713.2 billion across four quarters of accelerating top-line growth, and management is spending billions on AI-powered fulfillment and robotics that should widen its already formidable cost advantage. The question is whether the premium is justified — or whether defensive buyers are overpaying for safety.