Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT) finished Thursday with a subtraction of -$1.21 to close at $156.89, a downside of -0.77 percent. An average of 5,903,280 shares of common stock have been traded in the last five days. There was a gain of $1.20 in the past week, and it reached a new high 31 times over the past 12 months. The last 20 days have seen an average of 5,805,765 shares traded, while the 50-day average volume stands at 5,517,696.
WMT stock has decreased by -1.78% in the last month. The company shares reached their 1-month lowest point of $155.02 on 08/17/23. With the stock rallying to its 52-week high on 08/14/23, shares of the company touched a low of $128.07 and a high of $162.78 in 52 weeks. It has reached a new high 29 times so far this year and achieved 10.65% or $15.10 in price. In spite of this, the price is down -3.62% from the 52-week high.
Insider Transactions
WMT stock investors should be aware that Walmart Inc. (WMT) stock had its last reported insider trading activity 24 days ago on Aug 01. In this transaction, the insider spent $159,477. President and CEO, McMillon C Douglas, disposed of 9,708 shares at a price of $159.58 on Jul 27. The insider now owns more than $1,549,157 worth of shares. Prior to that, Executive Vice President Furner John R. went on to Sale 4,375 shares at $159.24 each on Jul 26. An amount of $696,675 was transacted.
Valuation Metrics
Walmart Inc. (WMT) has a trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 30.21. The stock’s beta is 0.50. Other valuation ratios to consider include the trailing price-to-sales (P/S) ratio at 0.66, the price-to-book (PB) ratio at 5.84, and the price-to-cash flow ratio at 34.75.
Financial Health
The quick ratio of Walmart Inc. for the three months ended July 30 was 0.20, and the current ratio was 0.80, indicating that the company is not able to meet its debt obligations. Further, the company has a long term debt to equity ratio of 0.60 and a total debt to equity ratio of 0.68 for the quarter ending July 30. Its gross profit as reported stood at $147.57 billion compared to revenue of $611.29 billion.
For investors, determining the potential profitability of the investment also depends on the performance of the company’s management. In the past 12 months, Walmart Inc.’s return on assets was 4.80%.
Earnings Surprise
For the three-month period that ended July 30, Walmart Inc. had $38.12 billion in total debt. In the quarter under review, the net income was down than the previous quarter. The company posted a net income of $1.67 billion in the quarter, while revenues were shrunk -22.77%. The analyst consensus anticipated Walmart Inc.’s latest quarter earnings to come in at $1.7 per share, but it turned out to be $1.84, a 8.20% surprise. For the quarter, EBITDA amounted to $9.09 billion. Shareholders own equity worth $2.69 billion.
Technical Picture
From a technical analysis perspective, let’s take a brief look at Walmart Inc. (WMT) price momentum. RSI 9-day as of the close on 24 August was 41.69%, suggesting the stock is Neutral, with historical volatility in this time frame at 15.16%.
As of today, WMT’s price is $157.49 +0.77% or $1.20 from its 5-day moving average. WMT is currently trading -1.43% lower than its 20-day SMA and +6.40% higher than its 100-day SMA. However, the stock’s current price level is +1.02% above the SMA50 and +11.29% above the SMA200.
The stochastic %K and %D were 29.81% and 31.34%, respectively, and the average true range (ATR) was 2.41. With the 14-day stochastic at 24.10% and the average true range at 2.29, the RSI (14) stands at 45.44%. The stock has reached -0.62 on the 9-day MACD Oscillator while the 14-day reading was at -1.60.
Analyst Ratings
RBC Capital Mkts reiterated its an Outperform rating on Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT), but raised their price target to $165, indicating a potential price increase of 4.92% for the stock. The consensus rating for Walmart Inc. (WMT) among analysts is Overweight. According to current brokerage recommendations, 0 brokerage firms advise that investors sell WMT, while 6 suggest investors hold. There are 1 analyst who rate the stock as underweight. The stock is rated overweight by 5 analysts, while 27 others rate it as a “buy”.
What is WMT’s price target for the next 12 months?
Analysts predict a range of price targets between $163.00 and $210.00, with a median target of $179.50. Taking a look at these predictions, the average price target given by analysts for Walmart Inc. (WMT) stock is $178.03.
