WMT · Forward model · Bear case

The Bear case, 20 quarters out

Model as of 2026-08-27

Each segment is projected from its own operating driver, rolled up into consolidated cash flow, and discounted back to a fair value per share. The assumptions below are editable — change them and every number on this page moves with them.

Four verticals, four disclosed lines. Walmart U.S., Walmart International and Sam's Club U.S. are the three reported segments, copied exactly as filed, and 'Membership and other income' is the consolidated income-statement line. In all fourteen quarters here, 2024 Q1 through 2027 Q2, the four sum to reported total revenue to the dollar: $125,189M + $35,198M + $25,713M + $1,837M = $187,937M at the basis quarter. Corporate and support reports no net sales, so it appears only as overhead and as a capital programme. No sub-segment, geography, channel or product split is created: Walmart+ member counts, the absolute size of the advertising business, any Flipkart or Walmex revenue split, and the fee-versus-other split inside membership income are all undisclosed, and none is manufactured. Seasonality is indexed to Walmart's OWN fiscal quarter labels, the same labels the site's revenue series uses. Fiscal Q1 is February-April and fiscal Q4 is November-January, so Walmart's holiday quarter IS its fiscal Q4 and the seasonal peak sits at index 4 with no calendar remapping. Factors were derived over three complete fiscal-year windows (FY2024, FY2025, FY2026) as each quarter's share of that year's mean. Walmart U.S. gets [0.9365, 1.0009, 0.9946, 1.0679] on a per-quarter window spread never above 1.2pp against 13.1pp of amplitude. Sam's Club gets [0.9502, 1.0143, 1.0156, 1.0200] - the shape is a soft Q1, not a holiday spike, because a membership base and a large fuel component flatten the fourth quarter. International gets the derived [0.9399, 0.9634, 1.0000, 1.0967] rather than the Q3/Q4-pooled alternative, because Walmart has told us the Flipkart Big Billion Days sits in Q4 this year and the pooled variant would push revenue the other way. Membership and other income is left ASEASONAL on the evidence, not by omission. Because seasonality is present, each driver's growthQoQ is a DESEASONALISED TREND rate, not a printed sequential step. Two conventions cross the disclosure line and both are visible in the output. The membershipOther vertical carries a zero EBITDA margin because the three segment margins are computed on segment net sales while segment operating income already contains that segment's membership and other income; a non-zero margin here would double count it. Corporate overhead is 0.16% of revenue, which is the FY2026 Corporate and support EBITDA loss of $1,151M over total revenue of $713,163M. On these settings the four verticals plus corporate reproduce FY2026 consolidated EBITDA of $44,028M to within $1M. International is projected in reported dollars at spot FX. That is a decision, not an omission: the driver rate is the constant-currency trend of about 1.9% a quarter, damped to 1.25%, so no further translation help is assumed, and the year-ago quarters still carry old rates. A currency reversal would remove roughly five points of annual growth from the largest-growth vertical, and it is carried explicitly as the largest single delta in the bear case. Where the model sits against the company's own guidance. Projected 2027 Q3 net sales of $188.5B are +6.05% year on year. Walmart guides +3.0% to +3.75% in constant currency, which at the 0.8-point currency benefit disclosed in 2027 Q2 is about +3.8% to +4.55% reported, and adding back the 'over 100bps' Flipkart Big Billion Days headwind the company names for that quarter gives roughly +4.8% to +5.55%. The model therefore runs about half a point to a point and a quarter hot on the guided quarter, for two reasons it cannot express: a four-factor seasonal shape cannot hold a one-year timing shift that moves revenue from Q3 into Q4 and then reverses, and the 2027 Q2 Sam's Club base includes a fuel component the company itself strips out (+8.8% reported against +4.5% ex-fuel). Profit lands closer: FY2027 EBITDA of $49.2B less D&A at the H1 run rate is about $33.5B of operating income, inside the guided adjusted range of roughly $33.2B to $33.6B ($31.0B grown 7.0% to 8.5%). Projected H2 FY2027 capital expenditure of $15.7B is 4.00% of projected H2 net sales, matching the raised FY2027 guide of approximately 4.0%. Three limitations to hold in view. Share count is fixed at 7,958,079,155: $25.1B remains of the $30B authorisation approved in February 2026 and 42.3 million shares were bought back year to date for $5.1B, so a roughly 1%-a-year reduction in shares is real and is NOT in the fair value. About 90% of enterprise value here is the exit multiple rather than the explicit twenty-quarter path, so the 17x assumption outweighs every driver on the page. And the $2,067M print in 2027 Q1 membership and other income - up 27.0% year on year with the Walmart U.S. component up 45.6% - is unexplained in the releases; the basis quarter of $1,837M was checked against the trailing four-quarter average of $1,843.5M, found within 0.4%, and left unstepped.

Where each case comes from

From cash flow to fair value

Capex outside the verticals

Each vertical's capex is a share of its own revenue, which is the right shape for capacity that scales with sales. These are not that: fixed-size programmes with their own schedule that spend whether or not any segment grows. They are added on top, and they are why free cash flow dips in the years below.

The projected path

The published model's 20 quarters. The horizon and sliders above do not change this table.

Every row is projected. A year-over-year change is shown only where the quarter it compares against exists — an em dash means there is no comparable quarter, not a flat year.

Model revisions

Assumptions are marked to reality as each quarter prints. Every change is appended here, with the fair value the model produced at the time, so the model's own history stays visible.