Mad Money

Is Wal-Mart a Buy?

After being ranged-bound for years, Wal-Mart could be poised to break out, Cramer said Monday. So he’s putting it on his buy list.

While the “Mad Money” host used to think the world’s largest retailer was a “pitiful, helpless giant,” he’s changed his tune thanks to what he heard at the company’s recent analyst day.

“The company has gotten its act together and is once again posting healthy same-store sales numbers,” he said.

Those same-store sales numbers started gaining momentum in July and the improvement continued through September. In fact, Cramer thinks Wal-Mart could be on track to deliver its first positive quarterly same-store sales number in more than two years.

And after years of reducing the assortment of goods, Wal-Mart has brought back tens of thousands of items across the board.

The company also plans to improve its financial discipline by cutting costs and embracing technology to improve productivity. And it wants to recapture market share by building new stores—the retailer is looking to add 210 to 235 new units next year.

Wal-Mart is also getting aggressive on pricing and expects to invest $2 billion in lower prices over the next two years in order to take market share away from the competition, Cramer pointed out. Plus, the company is competing on the Internet by coming up with new ways to give free shipping to customers.

“Wal-Mart is back,” Cramer said.

The turn is just starting, he added, and the stock seems cheap, selling for 10 times earnings with a 2.65 percent yield. Since we’re heading into the holiday season and the stock is under $55, Cramer thinks it’s a buy.

“Wal-Mart is no longer a pitiful helpless giant, it's just a giant,” he said, “and the competition had better get out of the way before it gets stomped.”

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