NEW YORK, December 31, 2025, 5:58 PM ET — After-hours
- Walmart shares were down about 0.5% in after-hours trading, tracking a weaker year-end tape.
- A filing showed CEO Doug McMillon sold shares under a prearranged trading plan, while the company also disclosed another executive’s Rule 10b5-1 plan.
- Traders are looking to early-January economic data and Walmart’s next investor and earnings events for direction.
Walmart Inc. shares were down about 0.5% in after-hours trading on Wednesday, extending a modest decline into the close of the year’s final session as investors weighed fresh insider disclosures and a recent digital outage.
The timing matters because Walmart heads into 2026 after a strong 2025 run, leaving investors sensitive to any signals that management is trimming exposure or that key systems are vulnerable during peak shopping windows.
The broader backdrop was also unsupportive. Wall Street’s major indexes ended 2025 lower in thin holiday trading, and “I do not expect that the last few days will have so much bearing on the performance of the next year,” said Giuseppe Sette, co-founder and president of Reflexivity, pointing to low liquidity and profit-taking. Reuters
Walmart last traded at $111.41, after moving between $111.32 and $112.24 during the day. Volume was about 11.4 million shares.
A key company-specific headline this week was a brief outage that disrupted Walmart’s mobile app and website on Tuesday morning. More than 6,500 users reported problems shortly after 7 a.m. ET, and a Walmart spokesperson said systems were quickly restored, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Investors also digested a Form 4 filing showing Chief Executive Doug McMillon sold 19,416 shares on Dec. 26 at a weighted-average price of about $111.83. The filing said the transaction was executed under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.
Separately, a Walmart 8-K disclosed that Sam’s Club U.S. chief Chris Nicholas adopted a Rule 10b5-1 plan that can allow monthly sales beginning in April 2026, according to the filing. A Rule 10b5-1 plan is a preset schedule that lets insiders trade without day-to-day discretion, aiming to avoid concerns about trading on non-public information.
Such plans are common among large-cap executives, but they can still draw attention at year-end when investors scrutinize positioning and sentiment into January.
Retail trading was mixed. Amazon fell about 0.7% and Costco slipped about 0.4%, while Target rose about 0.3%; the retail ETF was down about 0.8%.
Before the next regular session, traders will contend with a calendar shift: U.S. equity markets are closed on Thursday for New Year’s Day, with regular trading set to resume on Friday, Jan. 2.
For Walmart-specific catalysts, investors are watching the company’s appearance at the ICR Conference on Jan. 13 and its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings release scheduled for Feb. 19, the company’s events calendar shows. The focus will be on holiday demand, the pace of digital growth, and any updates on 2026 margin and cost pressures.
Macro data may also steer sentiment around consumer spending. The U.S. jobs report for December 2025 is scheduled for Jan. 9, and the December CPI inflation report is scheduled for Jan. 13, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics calendar.
Beyond that, the Federal Reserve’s next policy meeting is set for Jan. 27–28, keeping rate expectations in focus as investors reset portfolios for 2026.
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