• On Tuesday, Walmart topped consensus estimates for third-quarter earnings and earnings.
• WMT rose 3% on the day to close at $86.60 after raising its full-year outlook.
• Walmart shares hit a novel all-time high of $88.29 on Tuesday.
• E-commerce sales and advertising helped the retailer continue to grow.

Walmart (WMT)the world’s largest retail chain by revenue closed down 3% on Tuesday after reporting third-quarter results that were above consensus. The box store Megolith also raised its full-year guidance, which sent the stock price to a novel all-time high.

The Dow Jones index fell -0.3%, for the second day in a row underperforming the NASDAQ, which gained 1%.

Walmart Stock News

In the third quarter, Walmart earned $0.58 in adjusted earnings per share (EPS) on revenue of $169.6 billion. That was 5 cents above the Wall Street consensus and nearly $3 billion higher on sales.

Walmart’s comparable store sales increased more than 5% year-over-year in the quarter, while international store sales increased more than 12% year-over-year.

Despite a quarter that included a U.S. port strike, two hurricanes and a presidential election, CEO Doug McMillon said e-commerce, advertising and memberships posted year-over-year growth of more than 20%.

“Households earning over $100,000 accounted for 75% of our stock returns. In the U.S., store sales volumes grew faster, curbside pickups grew faster, and delivery sales grew even faster,” McMillon said.

We are increasing our full-year guidance to reflect sturdy third-quarter results. On a constant currency basis, we now expect full-year sales growth of 4.8% to 5.1% and operating income growth of 8.5% to 9.25%, compared to previous expectations of growth of 3.75% to 4%, respectively. .75% and 6.5% to 8%.

Walmart management now expects adjusted EPS to be in the range of $2.42 to $2.47 for the full year, compared with its prior guidance of $2.35 to $2.43.

“This full-year guidance assumes continued fourth-quarter currency sales growth of approximately 3% to 4% and operating income of approximately 5% to 7.5%,” McMillon said on the earnings call. “This guidance is slightly above our prior Q4 guidance range.”

Walmart Stock Forecast

Walmart shares hit an intraday high of $88.29, which is now also a novel all-time high. WMT shares are up almost 67% year to date, and Tuesday’s results show they could end the year in positive territory.

At the moment, the daily chart shows that WMT is approaching the overbought range on the Relative Strength Index (RSI), so this may not be the right time to enter.

Daily WMT stock chart