By Michael Elkins
Tigress Financial Partners upgraded their investment rating on Walmart (NYSE:WMT) to Buy (from Neutral) and raised the stock’s price target to $176.00 (from $170.00) as the retailer continues to expand.
Ongoing investments in Walmart’s new growth flywheel include the retailer’s Walmart+ consumer and business subscription service and Health & Wellness initiatives, along with ongoing investments in ancillary services, including financial services and media, entertainment, and its Walmart Connect digital advertising platform. Its analysts believe that all of these initiatives may create niche growth opportunities.
They wrote in a note that “WMT continues to grow its e-commerce and omnichannel capabilities driven by ongoing investments in advanced digital capabilities, including the launch of Walmart Business, a dedicated e-commerce site tailored to small and medium business customers. Advertising with Walmart Connect is benefitting from eCommerce growth, driving strong growth in return on ad spend, which in turn helped drive the highest ad spend all year for sponsored search and its U.S. marketplace on Walmart.com now offers ~370 million SKUs, up more than 50% Q/Q.”
In addition to the company’s growth, WMT continues to enhance shareholder returns through ongoing dividend increases and share repurchases, having announced a dividend increase every year since it began paying a dividend in 1974 and recently announced a new $20 billion share repurchase authorization.
Shares of WMT are up 0.22% in mid-day trading on Thursday.