The company is so big and its purchasing power is so huge... it has the power to keep prices low for its customers.

Wal-Mart performed well in November when the chips were down. It demonstrated that a fundamental transformation has occurred over the last year and appears poised for a successful holiday season.

Here we're dealing with a minority of shoppers who are in distress, overextended with credit and facing bankruptcy.

For the majority of shoppers, times are as good as you're going to expect. I think there's going to be a degree of celebratory spending.

You'd have to be blind, deaf and dumb to not have known that oil prices went up. But if that indeed has a severe impact on economic growth, you'd still have to say that Wal-Mart is a defensive play. It sells the cheap food and consumables that consumers have to replenish.

December's barely passable sales made it evident that Wal- Mart must make changes in its U.S. division with even greater zeal.