The Street's Early Reaction To Walmart's Q4 Beat

Retail giant Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT) reported Tuesday morning with fourth-quarter results that were better-than-expected and helped lift the stock higher by more than 3 percent.

Moody's O'Shea: CEO Deserves Credit

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon has done a "terrific job" in managing the company under the philosophy that if the company invests in the business, clients will come, Moody's lead Walmart analyst Charles O'Shea said as a guest on CNBC's "Squawk Box" segment.

This is most evident in Walmart's U.S. net sales, which rose by a "massive" 4.6 percent in the Q4, while the 40-percent growth in e-commerce sales suggests it will soon become a $20-billion-a-year unit.

"These are big numbers — 2-percent growth is $10 billion," he said. "That's the thing people may forget over time is how big that company really is."

Strategic Resource Group's Flickinger: Amazon's 'Worst Nightmares'

Burt Flickinger, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, told CNBC ahead of Walmart's report that the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer is poised to become "one of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN)'s worst nightmares."

The company has been able to "attract the best and the brightest" to its team, including Jet.com founder Marc Lore, who now leads Walmart's e-commerce business.

Checks and conversations with vendors and customers point to Walmart's e-commerce business gaining momentum at a time when Amazon's business is "going sideways," Flickinger said. 

Gordon Haskett's Grom: 3 Takeaways

Chuck Grom, senior retail analyst at Gordon Haskett, named three takeaways from the Q4 print during a guest spot on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas." 

• The reported 4.2-percent same-store sales growth in the U.S. business includes a benefit from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Excluding SNAP from the results implies comps would have been up 3.8 percent otherwise, Grom said. 
• Walmart's margins were not only strong, but came in better-than-expected across each operating segment.
• E-commerce growth remains "healthy" and contributed around two points to overall comps.

Walmart continues to "execute very well" overall, the analyst said.

Grom said he will revisit his firm's neutral stance on Walmart, adding that a bullish rating can now be justified at over 20 times earnings. Other retail names stand to outperform Walmart, especially dollar store chains, he said. 

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