Walmart just lost $20 billion in stock value — in less than 20 minutes

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published 14 October 2015

When Walmart announced its $20 billion share repurchase plan, the world's largest retailer saw its market value drop nearly the same amount — putting the company's stock "on track for its worst one-day performance in more than 17 years," Reuters reported Tuesday. In total, the retailer's shares fell nearly 9 percent — "the equivalent of the entire market value of department-store chain Macy's," Quartz reports.

The plummet followed Walmart's revelation that "earnings per share would decline as much as 12 percent next fiscal year due to investment in technology, higher wages, and lower prices." The company had previously forecasted modest sales growth for 2016.

Walmart tried to spin the profit decline as "investment mode," describing itself as a "growth company." But, as Bloomberg reports one analyst wrote in a note to clients, "the outlook was far worse than anyone expected."