Wal-Mart January sales were up a breath-taking 2.2%. For most retailers that would be mediocre, but WMT has been having 1% growth months for some time now. Wal-Mart itself said that it would do no better than 1% to 2% in January.

Perhaps now the big retailer can stop firing people and pointing figures. Of course, this could only be a one month trend and the recriminations could begin anew in a few weeks.

Wal-Mart has been remodeling its stores in the hopes of bringing in new customers, but whether that is helping is not known.

WMT stock will probably go up Monday, but that would just be a knee jerk reaction.

It’s just one month.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.