Last quarter, prior to Walmart's earnings report, data from the LikeFolio Research Dashboard was showing an enormous quarter for the company, with consumer purchase intent mentions surging primarily based on big gains in its online shopping presence.

Sure enough, the company reported a major earnings and revenue beat, and since then, the stock has surged by over 15% in a matter of just a few months:

A different story for Q3

As we head into Walmart's Q3 earnings report, we take a look at the exact same set of data, with a focus on the 3rd quarter bar of purchase intent mentions, circled below in blue.

As you can see, the Q3 bar is not nearly as impressive as Q2.  In fact, it's more in line with "normal" sales levels for the company.  So, how do we read this?

First of all, this does NOT mean that we see Walmart having an enormous decline in Q3 revenues vs Q2.  Walmart is too big and stable for us to make that conclusion.

What it does tell us is that the consumer excitement for Walmart's e-commerce offering in the 3rd quarter is very unlikely to match what we saw in Q2.  

So here's what we've got going into tonight's earnings:

1.  Stock near highs
2.  High anticipation of continued surge in e-commerce sales
3. Consumer purchase intent data suggesting the Q2 surge was an outlier that did not carry over into Q3

That is the kind of information that gives us an edge.  An edge -- not a golden goose -- but a unique information advantage that we can exploit over time to significantly increase our probability of profiting from our Earnings Predictions.

-- Walmart's complete earnings prediction, including conclusions based on our proven Earnings Trading Strategy, can be found in this week's Sunday Earnings Sheet.