Wal-Mart refuses to play ball with the recession. Its July same-store sales were not tremendous, its most recent quarter was, under the circumstances, spectacular. The figures were for the period ending July 31.

Income from continuing operations for the quarter were $3.385 billion, an increase of 9.3% from $3.097 billion in the second quarter last year. Net sales for the period were $101.6 billion, an increase of 10.4% from $92.0 billion in the second quarter last year.

Wal-Mart has both the economic slowdown and the law of large numbers working against it.

Wal-Mart’s earnings are a testament to the brilliance of building a large overseas business, even it the company did stumble in South Korea and Germany.

Revenue outside the US rose 17% to $25.3 billion. US revenue was only up 8%, which is remarkable on its own.

Wal-Mart said all of the usual things about employee performance and operating efficiency. It pushed its everyday low prices as the reason for its success.

But, the reality of the Wal-Mart miracle these days is in the big and medium-sized cities in Mexico and China. Where it does not have much competition. It also upped its EPS targets. The truth of the matter is that it is likely that none of that comes from the US

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