Walmart Maintains Momentum With 'Buy' Rating From BofA

Walmart Inc. WMT has strong sales momentum and its focus on managing costs could boost results in fiscal 2023, according to BofA Securities.

The Walmart Analyst: Robert Ohmes maintained a Buy rating for Walmart, while keeping the price target unchanged at $160.

The Walmart Thesis: The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company continues to diversify its business and deepen its customer engagement with Health & Wellness, Financial Services and the Walmart Plus membership program, Ohmes noted.

Walmart also has “impressive momentum in International ancillary businesses,” including:

BAIT, a service for customers to place calls and access the internet in Mexico where 40% of households do not have access to the internet. BAIT currently has about 3.7 million members.

Digital payment platform PhonePe in India has hit $800 billion in annualized total payments value, with 2.7 million transactions per month and 30 million merchants across India, he added.

“We continue to see WMT well-positioned in a highly inflationary environment as many shoppers across WMT’s broad customer base will likely continue to favor its variety of value-priced offerings,” Ohmes further wrote in the note.

WMT Price Action: Shares of Walmart declined slightly to $125.00 at the time of publication Monday.