Mind the Gap: Walmart stock history vs. Hasbro and Mattel

Wal-Mart, celebrates its 45th birthday today with nearly 6,500 stores and wholesale clubs in fifteen countries around the world.

In 1962, founder Sam Walton opened his first store in Rogers, Arkansas growing eventually into the monolith we see from Hawaiian suburbs to desert outposts, freeway towns to urban centers. At the end of the 2006 fiscal year, Wal-Mart reported its sales at $62.7 billion, “an 11.4 percent increase over the previous year, and that operating profit rose to $3.3 billion, an increase of 11.4 percent over the prior year,” according to Wal-mart’s corporate website.

Recently, the department store giant has come under scrutiny for their alleged increase in pressure on companies such as Hasbro, Mattel, and MGA, among other companies, to use outsourced labor in order to reduce the cost of producing toys. While these allegations are not limited to dealings with toy companies, this graph compares the trends in stock prices between Wal-Mart (blue), Mattel (maroon), and Hasbro (yellow).]]>