Chart of Day: Walmart (WMT) – 2/7

Keep an eye on Walmart (WMT).

After rocketing from about $150 to $167.72 – which refills its bearish gap – the stock will split 3:1 after the market closes on February 23 for shareholders of record as of February 22. The stock will then start trading at a post-split price on February 26.

Walmart said it chose to break up shares in part to allow more employees to buy into its stock purchase plan. The company “felt it was a good time to split the stock and encourage our associates to participate in the years to come,” CEO Doug McMillon said, as quoted by CNBC.

Once the split happens, we do expect to see WMT shares explode higher.

From CNBC, “According to Morgan Stanley research, the shares of a company that announced a stock split outperformed the S&P 500 by an average of 2.4% between the announcement and effective date, with a 68% hit rate. In the six months after the effective date, the newly split shares outperformed the index by 4.7%. Those results are based on data from 2000 to 2021.”

It’s another sign that WMT is on the right track, and will continue to grow. Bernstein analysts, for example, recently raised the firm’s price target on WMT to $175 from $165, with a market perform rating.