在沃尔玛10-Q表格涵盖了截至4月30日的三个月期间，而其他公司发布截至3月30日的三个月中其第一季度报告。为什么沃尔玛比其他公司提前一个月结束？公司如何在这方面受到监管？
为什么沃尔玛（SYMBOL：WMT）的2015年第一季度将于4月30日结束，而不是3月30日
Answers:
截至3月30日的第一季度为三个月的12月财政年度结束了财政税收年度。这可能非常方便，有时需要在美国。此外，银行等一些受监管的公司需要在日历季度准备文件，无论其财政年度结束的月份如何，并且通常更便宜和更容易使它们同步而不是为监管机构另外关闭账簿。
企业可能会有动力改变其财政年度，以便更好地为客户或投资者服务。例如，一些银行的财政年度结束时间不是12月，因此需要在年底进行金融交易的客户可以在没有银行同时关闭自己的账簿的情况下这样做。摩根士丹利多年来一直这样做。沃尔玛可能会这样做，因为12月是美国的圣诞节购物季节，管理层希望专注于这个关键的购物时期而不会分散会计问题。此外，如果在假期之后进行一些购物（比如说光明节来得晚或因为喧嚣的Festivus购物），可能会将一个购物季分成不同的财政年度，这对于试图比较零售商业绩的投资者来说可能是不可取的。
对于沃尔玛的时机，我不想过于依赖任何这些解释。如果我在几年前从Compustat中看到正确的回忆，超过80％的美国上市公司都有12月的FYE，并且各个行业的变化并不大。
更新：我进入Compustat并重新编制零售，银行和其他公司的表格，显示过去12个月（8 / 2014-7 / 2015）财政年度结束的月份。令我惊讶的是，2015年1月份的零售价格确实比2015年的典型公开上市公司大得多（> 20倍）。结果如下图所示。
资料来源：Compustat
这证明了这样一个假设，即作为一个具有重大假期销售额的零售商，沃尔玛可能会在1月份的FYE中强调这些结果。
3
This is a good answer, but incomplete— it might be worth adding a reference to explain that Walmart, being a large retailer that does significant has significant sales before and after Christmas, would benefit from closing its Q4 books at the end of January, rather than immediately after the holiday, both from a resources standpoint and to include a complete picture of holiday season sales.
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dismalscience
I integrated your suggestions into my answer. Thanks for the feedback.
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BKay
I offer the following reason why a business like Walmart may desire to have January end as its closing-date for the fiscal year: in anticipation of the high-season of Christmas, it is natural that inventories rise "abnormally", in order not to lose sales. Most probably Walmart has return-contracts with suppliers. So during January is when any products that did not fulfill forecasted sales are returned (especially for Christmas-specific products) in order to optimize inventories.
Optimizing the value of inventories is essential for a commercial company. Assume now that such optimization takes place during January, but the fiscal year closes on Decemeber 31: the optimization would never show in the official yearly Financial Statements. The company would have to include Notes saying things like "inventories may appear high, but during January we have returned... etc". But a note in the Financial Statement is never as strong as the magnitude appearing on the Balance Sheet itself. So the company, in order to allow for an actual management practice to show in the Financial Statements (and not in order to artificially embellish its financial picture), closes the year on January end.