Know your customer

This retailing adage came to mind today in reading reports of Walmart's second quarter earnings. While reporting earnings that were better than analyst's expectations, revenues were slightly below their earlier forecasts. Walmart did say that it had particularly good success luring customers into its stores with deep discounts on products like "Sam's choice black angus beef patties, baked beans, and flat-panel televisions".

---disclosure---the writer is a long term shareholder of WMT