Highlights Portfolio Strategy The consumer staples recovery is sales-driven, underscoring that additional outperformance lies ahead. The lagging hypermarkets and retail food industries are starting to play catch up, reflecting a…

The hypermarkets industry is enjoying a number of green shoots, indicative of an imminent recovery in relative sales growth. Wal-Mart noted that store traffic continues to improve, albeit aided by discounting. Still, the need to slash…

Our recent upgrade of the S&P hypermarkets index was predicated on the view that expectations had become so depressed that upside profit margin and sales surprises were increasingly likely. Walmart's positive earnings results…

The previous Insight showed that macro forces were shifting in favor of a trough in the brutal backdrop for hypermarkets sales. Even if the latter are slow to recover, there is scope for positive profit margin surprises in the coming…

Hypermarkets are off their relative performance lows, despite the rebound in the broad market. That is a solid showing for a defensive industry that has been in the doldrums for more than three years. It is easy to understand why…

A lack of confirming growth indicators puts the equity advance at risk. Lift hypermarkets to overweight, stick with homebuilders and fade any small and/or mid cap relative strength.