Here's How Much Traders Expect Walmart Stock To Move After Earnings This Week

Kevin Carter / Getty Images) Walmart, the world's largest retailer, is slated to report quarterly results Thursday morning

Retail giant Walmart (WMT) is slated to report second-quarter earnings before markets open on Thursday, and investors see potential for shares to approach a record high in the days following.

Walmart stock is expected to finish the week roughly 4% above or below last week’s closing price, according to options prices. A move of that magnitude would put shares at either $104, their highest close since February, or $96, a nearly 1-month low.

Walmart stock has notched an average post-earnings move of about 4.2% over the past four quarters. Shares slid 0.5% after Walmart’s most recent report in May, when CEO Doug McMillon warned that tariffs would drive up prices. And the stock slid 6.5% after the company’s February report, when its full-year sales and earnings forecasts fell short of Wall Street estimates. Shares advanced after its two prior reports.

Walmart stock is up about 11% since the start of the year after rebounding from a tariff-fueled slump throughout March and early April.

Investors will be looking to Walmart for clues about how consumers and retailers are responding to President Trump’s tariffs. After a slump in consumer spending this spring, retail sales upticks of 0.9% in June and 0.5% in July “suggest the consumer is on slightly firmer footing headed into Q3,” according to Wells Fargo economists Tim Quinlan and Shannon Grein. Nonetheless, “we are still cautious on the trajectory of spending in the second half amid a moderating jobs market and concerns over higher prices.”

Regardless of the uncertainty, analysts are overwhelmingly bullish on the stock. All 12 of the analysts tracked by Visible Alpha with recent assessments of Walmart recommend buying shares. The average analyst’s price target of $111 is about 11% above Walmart’s intraday price on Monday.

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