Walmart's quarterly profit grows

Wal-Mart posted a higher than expected profit growth, helped by a lower tax rate than anticipated, while a high of 18% in dividends and comments that the u.s. sales patterns were getting back to normal drove shares of retailer.
The company said that the sales patterns in the US was more normal at the end of last week, after a weak start to the year, helping the company's stock to move 2.4%, to $ 70,88 at 3:23 pm.
Even so, the company's results showed a weakness in sales in early February, as the Americans have absorbed the impact of higher taxes on wages and price of gasoline along with a slow refund of taxes that put some spending on hold.
The Wal-Mart in the US, the largest unit of the group, had a slow start in February, which Chief Executive Bill Simon attributed largely to the delay in the release of the tax refund.
The company expects sales in the u.s. Wal-Mart open for at least a year, or same store sales are stable during the first quarter. A year earlier, they rose by 2.6%.
Wal-Mart earned $ 5.61 billion, or $ 1.67 per share from continuing operations in the fourth fiscal quarter, up from $ 5.19 billion, a $ 1.51 per share, a year earlier.
Wal-Mart projected a profit of $ 1.53 to $ 1.58 per share from continuing operations, and analysts had expected $ 1.57 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/s. Revenues increased 3.9%, to $ 127,92 billion.
The company projected earnings per share in the first quarter of $ 1.11 to $ 1.16, up from $ 1.09 a year earlier.
The company also designed a earnings per share in the fiscal year of $ 5.20 to $ 5.40, including about $ 0.09 in increased costs of their e-commerce operations. The profit in the fiscal year 2013 was $ 5.02.
Wal-Mart spent $ 157 million last year in its own investigation of alleged complaints of bribery in Mexico, Brazil, China and India, and in improvements to its compliance with the code of conduct.
A New York Times article in April 2012 mentioned an alleged bribery in its main Mexican unit. Wal-Mart said that the dividends in fiscal year 2014 would be $ 1.88 per share, up from $ 1.59 per share in fiscal year 2013.