I don't really understand where the term "Walmart disease" comes from. Certainly, Walmart is not an exciting company but it's far from poorly managed. The fact that it's stock has been in a holding pattern for a few years does not mean that it's future is bleak.
Walmart as a company has incredible focus at their core competency. It may be true that they've come close to saturating their market but they still do what they do better than anyone else. Microsoft has saturated their core markets, are losing ground in their core business, and have no idea where they're going to go in the future. But hey if they throw enough money at everything they might hit something...
The one thing they do have going for them is that they still have an incredibly smart collection of engineers. If they somehow find a way to get some leadership at the top, they could turn it around much the way Apple was able to turn it around once Jobs retook the reins.
>The fact that it's stock has been in a holding pattern for a few years does not mean that it's future is bleak.
Their stock doesn't move because there's way too much of it out there. I've heard talk of considering it AAA.
>It may be true that they've come close to saturating their market but they still do what they do better than anyone else.
The leverage their market position better than most but I've worked there and I found the quality of the management there pretty appalling. In fact, usually when a manager from Walmart went somewhere else they did poorly. As if they only know how to win when they already have a massively dominant position in the market. The only one who knew how to actually get that position was Sam Walton.
"There's a difference between the quality of a business and the quality of a management. If it's a strong enough business, it should be able to withstand poor management. If you gave me the number-one pick in the CEO draft, and said he had to run Ford Motor, I wouldn't do it. It would be too tough. A CEO depends on too many things happening that are outside his control, even if he's the best in the world."
-Warren Buffett
Walmart as a company has incredible focus at their core competency. It may be true that they've come close to saturating their market but they still do what they do better than anyone else. Microsoft has saturated their core markets, are losing ground in their core business, and have no idea where they're going to go in the future. But hey if they throw enough money at everything they might hit something...
The one thing they do have going for them is that they still have an incredibly smart collection of engineers. If they somehow find a way to get some leadership at the top, they could turn it around much the way Apple was able to turn it around once Jobs retook the reins.