Last week was a tale of Walmart and how it transformed from a 5 & 10 store to Walmart. There was a look into the financials, stocks, and forces that would affect the stores nationally and globally. A look was also taken at certain areas such as diversity, their traits and a SWOT was accomplished to see what would be good for the company to work on and make life better for their employees.

This week; will be a dive into the world of indicators and the categories the indicators fall under. These categories and indicators will and/or can affect the Walmart Empire. Included in this portion will not only be indicators; but the operations nationally and internationally, but also internationally.

Home

Every quarter, the Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA) will release a listing of indicators that companies can use to gage the current state within the economy. The company can also find factors that pertain the current economy.  When looking at the indicators, it must also include looking at the attributes. It can help one understand things a little better. There are three attributes for indicators and are classified to go hand in hand with the economy, the attributes are pro-cyclical, counter cyclical and acyclical.

1. Procyclical is an “economic indicator that moves in the same direction as the economy. What this means is if the economy is doing well, then numbers are generally increasing. If there is a recession the indicator will decrease. A perfect example of this is the gross domestic product (GDP). (Moffett. 2018).

2. Countercyclical is an indicator that moves in the opposite direction of the economy. The issue with this is that generally the unemployment will go up and the economy gets worse, that is could already be. (Moffett. 2018)

3. Acyclical this attribute has no relation to the health of the economy. (Moffett. 2018)

Along with the attributes there are also timing indicators. Just some of these indicators are Leading, Lagged and Coincident. Each of these indicators are just as important as any other.

1. Leading economic indicators: An indicator that can change before the economy changes and this indicator are the most important because they help forecast the economy’s future direction (Cheung & Waterson, 2011). One example of this type of indicator is the stock market since it shall rise or fall before any changes to the economy occurs due to a recession or inflationary period.
2. Lagged economic indicators: An indicator that does not change directions until a few quarters after the economy does (Cheung & Waterson, 2011). One example of this type of indicator is the unemployment rate which always rises or fall after an instance such as a recession occurs.
3. Coincident indicators: An indicator that moves at the same time as the economy does and provides insight on the current economic conditions (Cheung & Waterson, 2011). One example of this type of indicator is the (GDP) Gross Domestic Product since it constantly moves based on whether the economy is growing or shrinking.

As of today, 27 Nov 18, Walmart is listed as number one on the Global Fortune 500 listing. Apparently, it has been there for some time.  It is also apparent that Walmart itself is a good indicator of how well the economy is doing. As of 2018 Walmart consists of over 11,000 stores and in that approximately 4600 are in the United States. Below is a chart that shows the number of stores from 2008 -2018 (Statista, 2018).

Total number of stores worldwide from 2008-2018. Statista, 2018