New York, Feb 9, 2026, 17:41 EST — Trading after the bell.
- Walmart shares finished 1.65% lower, ticking down a bit further in after-hours trading
- Oppenheimer and Mizuho have both raised their price targets on Walmart just before the retailer’s quarterly results.
- After the stock’s sharp rally, investors are zeroing in on guidance and margins.
Walmart Inc. ended Monday at $129.02, off 1.65% for the session, before slipping to $128.85 after hours—stocks move beyond the 4 p.m. ET close. During regular trading, shares ranged from $128.09 to $131.79.
The drop is significant; Walmart’s numbers don’t just sway retail stocks on revenue alone. Investors watch the company’s guidance for clues on grocery trends, pricing strength, and whether customers are cutting back or still opting for pricier, higher-margin goods.
The timing isn’t ideal for the stock, either. Walmart’s narrative is increasingly about valuation, not just retail operations, with expectations ratcheting up in the lead-up to the quarterly print.
Oppenheimer’s Rupesh Parikh lifted his Walmart price target to $140 from $125, maintaining an Outperform call before earnings. Citing a robust holiday quarter and “top-line momentum across the enterprise,” Parikh also flagged some “modest weather benefits.” He anticipates Walmart’s first guidance will likely echo its typical “algorithm” for both sales and operating income growth. TipRanks
David Bellinger at Mizuho stuck with his Outperform call and bumped up his price target to $137 from $125, a report said Monday.
Brokers set price targets to indicate where they think a stock might head over the next year—these aren’t guarantees. If analysts bump up those targets ahead of an earnings release, that can make it tougher for companies to deliver results that impress.
Last week, Walmart’s market value topped $1 trillion, pulling the retail giant onto the same stage as the biggest names in tech and cranking up pressure on its performance. “We think of trillion-dollar market caps as being a tech-stock phenomenon, but Walmart is a gritty ‘old-economy’ company,” said Charles Sizemore, a Walmart investor. Reuters
Valuation has become a real tug-of-war here. A Motley Fool piece on Nasdaq.com puts Walmart’s price-to-earnings ratio near 45, topping its own five-year average of 35 and well above the S&P 500’s 25. That kind of premium can turn brutal if there’s any slip.
Investors are after three things now: steady foot traffic, a grocery share that holds up, and evidence that digital growth isn’t coming at the cost of margins. Updates on advertising and membership patterns? Those, too, will get scrutinized with all that in mind.
Downside risk looks steeper here than any upside. Should Walmart deliver a cautious outlook—or if labor, logistics, or markdown expenses hit harder than anticipated—a stock trading at a premium can drop in a hurry.
Walmart’s fiscal fourth-quarter numbers are set to land Feb. 19, with earnings materials going up at about 6 a.m. CT. Management will kick off the earnings call an hour later, at 7 a.m. CT. That’s the next major test for the shares.
