Walmart Stock (WMT) Near Record Highs: Pre‑Market Outlook for December 1, 2025 After Black Friday Surge

As Wall Street gears up for the opening bell on Monday, December 1, 2025, Walmart Inc. (WMT) is heading into the new week sitting just below fresh record highs, powered by a “beat and raise” quarter, record Black Friday online spending, and a wave of analyst upgrades.

Walmart stock price snapshot before the December 1 open

Walmart shares closed Black Friday (Friday, November 28, 2025) at $110.51, up 1.29% on the day after trading between $109.00 and $110.70 on volume of about 9.85 million shares. ^[1]

That close is now Walmart’s all‑time high closing price, with the current 52‑week intraday high at $110.70, roughly 0.2% above Friday’s finish. ^[2] The 12‑month range runs from about $79.81 at the low to the recent highs above $110, underscoring how strongly the stock has re‑rated over the last year. ^[3]

On standard valuation metrics, Walmart is trading like a premium growth compounder rather than a sleepy consumer‑staples name:

Market cap: ~$881 billion
Price/earnings ratio: ~41.5x
PEG ratio: ~4.8x
Beta: ~0.67 (still behaving as a relatively low‑volatility defensive). ^[4]

The shares now sit well above their 50‑day and 200‑day moving averages (around $104 and $100 respectively), reflecting a strong uptrend into year‑end. ^[5] Various performance trackers show mid‑teens to low‑20% total returns year‑to‑date, handily outpacing the broader consumer‑staples sector. ^[6]

In price terms, then, Walmart enters the December 1 session as:

A new all‑time‑high story,
A market‑leading consumer staple, and
A de facto “growth‑at‑a‑reasonable‑(ish) price” trade in many investors’ eyes.

Q3 FY26: a “beat and raise” quarter powering the rally

Much of the recent strength in Walmart stock traces back to its fiscal Q3 2026 results (quarter ended October 31, 2025) and the guidance it issued alongside them.

According to Walmart’s official earnings release and subsequent reporting:

Revenue: about $179.5 billion, up 5.8% year over year, ahead of Wall Street estimates around $177–175 billion. ^[7]
Adjusted EPS:$0.62, up roughly 7% from a year ago and about $0.02 above consensus. ^[8]
U.S. comparable sales: up 4.5%, beating expectations of ~3.8%. ^[9]
Sam’s Club comps: around 3.8% growth. ^[10]
International sales: roughly 10–11% growth in constant currency, with standout contributions from Flipkart in India, Sam’s Club in China, and Walmex in Mexico. ^[11]

Digital and higher‑margin revenue streams remain the star of the show:

E‑commerce sales jumped in the high‑20% range (around 27–28%), marking the seventh consecutive quarter of >20% online growth. ^[12]
Advertising revenue grew more than 50% year over year globally and about one‑third in the U.S., according to analyst commentary. ^[13]
“Expedited” delivery orders fulfilled in under three hours surged roughly 70%, emphasizing the success of Walmart’s last‑mile logistics investments. ^[14]

Management used this backdrop to raise full‑year FY26 guidance:

Net sales growth: now expected at 4.8–5.1% (up from a prior 3.75–4.75% range). ^[15]
Adjusted EPS: guided to $2.58–2.63, slightly above the previous $2.52–2.62 range and ahead of the ~2.55 consensus at the time. ^[16]
Q4 FY26 guidance calls for sales growth of 3.75–4.75% and operating income growth of 8–11%, with capex running at about 3.5% of net sales. ^[17]

Wall Street commentary over the November 28–30 window has broadly framed this as a “beat and raise” quarter that justifies Walmart’s move into growth‑stock territory, but also raises the bar for Q4 execution. ^[18]

Analysts are almost unanimously bullish going into December

The last week has seen a stream of positive analyst notes and fresh price‑target hikes that help explain the buying pressure into Black Friday.

Consensus ratings and price targets

MarketBeat’s forecast page, updated after the post‑earnings move, shows:

32 analysts covering Walmart in the last 12 months
31 Buy / 1 Hold
Consensus rating: “Moderate Buy”
Average 12‑month price target:$118.55, implying about 7.3% upside from the $110.51 close
Target range: $91 on the low end to $130 on the high end. ^[19]

StockAnalysis, which tracks a slightly different analyst set, lists 30 analysts, a “Strong Buy” consensus, and a $118.10 price target, or roughly 7% upside. ^[20]

In other words, almost every major Wall Street shop following Walmart is positive on the name, with targets clustering in the high‑teens above the current price.

Fresh target hikes behind Friday’s move

A November 28 MarketBeat note highlighted that shares climbed roughly 1.3% to $110.51 on Friday after a volley of target upgrades, including: ^[21]

Robert W. Baird: to $121
Piper Sandler: to $123
Wolfe Research: new coverage with a $129 target
Wells Fargo and KeyCorp: both at $120

Earlier in the week, DA Davidson had lifted its target from $117 to $130, while Truist moved to $119, citing strong margins and rapid growth in advertising and other higher‑margin businesses. ^[22]

Collectively, these calls reinforce the narrative that:

Walmart is executing better than peers in a tough consumer environment, and
The stock, while not cheap, still offers modest upside over 12 months in analysts’ base cases.

Black Friday, AI and the holiday spending backdrop

The November 28–30 news flow has been dominated by Black Friday and holiday‑shopping data, and Walmart is squarely in the middle of that conversation.

Record online spending and AI‑powered shopping

Adobe estimates that U.S. online Black Friday spending hit about $11.8 billion in 2025, up 9.1% from last year, with AI shopping tools playing a major role in steering customers to deals. ^[23]

Reuters’ coverage of those figures singled out AI assistants such as Walmart’s “Sparky” and Amazon’s “Rufus” as key traffic drivers, noting that AI‑influenced purchases globally may reach $73 billion over the Thanksgiving‑to‑Cyber‑Monday stretch this year. ^[24] Cyber Monday is projected to generate around $14.2 billion in online sales, with some of the steepest discounts in electronics — historically a strong category for Walmart. ^[25]

An Associated Press deep‑dive on the holiday season’s technology angle highlighted how Walmart, Amazon and others are weaving AI into product recommendations, price tracking and even conversational ordering, often via integrations with tools like ChatGPT. ^[26] That dovetails with Walmart executives’ comments that more than 40% of the company’s new software code is now AI‑generated or AI‑assisted, and that automation covers a majority of its freight and online fulfillment volumes. ^[27]

Walmart hits record highs on Black Friday

Investor‑focused outlets reported that Walmart stock hit a record high on Black Friday, logging its third straight gain and breaking out above a prior technical “buy point” around $109.58. ^[28] The move caps a rapid climb from roughly $100 in mid‑November, helped by:

The Q3 earnings beat and raised outlook
Optimism about a potential Federal Reserve rate cut in December
Enthusiasm around Walmart’s AI shopping agent tests and omnichannel strategy. ^[29]

MarketWatch’s Black Friday market wrap also noted Walmart’s 1.29% gain to $110.51, alongside broader gains in retail and the major indices. ^[30]

Seasonal tailwinds – with caveats

Barron’s analysis of holiday trading patterns points out that retail stocks historically tend to rise in the week after Black Friday, citing modest average gains for big names like Walmart, Target and Home Depot following the kickoff to the holiday shopping season. ^[31] That seasonality, combined with upbeat early e‑commerce data, gives bulls another reason to stay constructive into the first week of December.

However, the same data sets also show fewer units per transaction and a consumer that’s still wrestling with inflation, tariffs and a softer labor market — all of which could pressure discretionary categories if conditions worsen. ^[32]

Walmart’s Nasdaq move and tech‑driven identity

Another major storyline for Walmart shareholders heading into December is the company’s upcoming exchange switch.

Listing transfer to Nasdaq on December 9

Walmart has announced it will transfer its stock‑exchange listing from the NYSE to the Nasdaq Global Select Market on December 9, 2025, while keeping its “WMT” ticker. ^[33] Nasdaq’s own technical bulletin confirms the effective date and notes that the change covers various Walmart securities. ^[34]

Reuters and other outlets have framed this shift as both a symbolic and strategic move, positioning Walmart more clearly as a technology‑infused growth company while giving it access to Nasdaq’s tech‑heavy investor base and index ecosystem (including potential inclusion in the Nasdaq‑100). ^[35]

From big‑box retailer to omnichannel, AI‑driven platform

A recent Financial Times profile described Walmart as having “reinvented itself as a growth stock,” citing: ^[36]

A doubling of annual capital expenditure to around $20 billion, much of it aimed at automation and technology.
Use of its ~4,600 U.S. stores as fulfillment hubs, blending physical locations with e‑commerce for faster delivery and pickup.
Strategic use of AI and robotics — including a deep partnership with Symbotic, which just reported blowout Q4 earnings after acquiring Walmart’s Advanced Systems and Robotics unit earlier this year. ^[37]

The same article and analyst research suggest that by 2029, Walmart and Amazon together could command roughly two‑thirds of U.S. online sales, underscoring the scale of Walmart’s digital ambitions. ^[38]

Dividends, balance sheet and the “forever stock” argument

Beyond near‑term trading, the November 30 coverage cycle has also focused on Walmart’s credentials as a long‑term income and compounding story.

A new Motley Fool piece, republished via Finviz on November 30 under the title “1 Top Dividend King to Buy and Hold Forever,” highlights several key points: ^[39]

Walmart is a Dividend King with 52 consecutive years of dividend increases.
In February 2025, the board raised the annual payout by 13% to $0.94 per share for FY26, implying a modest yield but demonstrating robust cash‑flow generation. ^[40]
Around 90% of the U.S. population lives within about 10 miles of a Walmart, giving the company enormous physical reach. ^[41]
Walmart continues to lean into AI and new technologies, including a partnership that allows shoppers to place orders via ChatGPT, while maintaining its core promise of low prices despite tariff‑driven cost pressures. ^[42]

From a balance‑sheet perspective, recent MarketBeat analysis pegs Walmart’s:

Debt‑to‑equity ratio at about 0.43
Current ratio at 0.79
Quick ratio at 0.23. ^[43]

Those figures reflect a high‑throughput, low‑margin retail model rather than a cash‑hoarding tech giant, but they’re broadly consistent with Walmart’s long history of managing leverage conservatively.

Institutional flows and insider activity

The November 29–30 news window also brought fresh data on institutional positioning and insider selling.

A MarketBeat report on November 29 noted that Mackenzie Financial Corp cut its Walmart stake by about 10.9% in Q2, selling roughly 350,000 shares and ending the period with 2.85 million shares valued around $279 million. ^[44] The same filing‑based piece pointed out that other institutions, including Aviva PLC and several asset managers, increased their holdings, and that roughly 26.8% of the float is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. ^[45]

Another MarketBeat article focusing on Friday’s price action highlighted that insiders sold approximately 138,600 shares (about $14.5 million) of Walmart stock over the last 90 days. ^[46] That’s not unusual for a large company near all‑time highs, but it adds nuance to the otherwise bullish narrative: insiders are taking some chips off the table even as Wall Street raises targets.

Key risks and what to watch as markets open on December 1

1. A higher bar for Q4 and 2026

By raising FY26 sales and earnings targets, Walmart has effectively raised expectations heading into its all‑important holiday quarter. Recent commentary asks whether Q4 can “match the hype,” especially with guidance calling for mid‑single‑digit sales growth and high‑single‑digit to low‑double‑digit operating‑income growth. ^[47]

Any sign of softening holiday demand — particularly in discretionary categories like apparel and home goods — could prompt investors to question whether the upgraded outlook was too optimistic.

2. Consumer health and tariff/inflation headwinds

Both Walmart’s management and third‑party data sources point to an increasingly bifurcated consumer:

Higher‑income households are driving much of the growth in delivery, general merchandise and discretionary spending.
Lower‑ and middle‑income consumers remain under pressure from inflation, tariffs and a weaker job market, leading to slower growth in some categories and fewer items per basket. ^[48]

Walmart’s value positioning arguably benefits from this backdrop — shoppers trade down into its ecosystem — but it also constrains pricing power and margins if the company has to absorb more of the cost increases.

3. Valuation risk

At roughly 41x trailing earnings and a PEG ratio near 4.8, Walmart trades at a premium to historical retailer multiples, a fact pointed out in multiple recent analyses. ^[49]

Bulls argue that:

Rapid growth in higher‑margin lines like advertising and marketplace services,
Structural share gains in e‑commerce, and
Tech‑enabled efficiency gains

justify that premium. However, if growth slows or margins disappoint, the stock has less valuation “cushion” than a traditional low‑teens‑multiple grocer.

4. Event calendar

Looking beyond Monday’s open, investors will be watching:

Cyber Monday sales data and updated Adobe/Salesforce figures for signs that momentum from Black Friday is continuing. ^[50]
Walmart’s Nasdaq listing switch on December 9, which could affect index membership and flows, even if the underlying business does not change. ^[51]
The FY26 Q4 earnings release, scheduled for February 19, 2026, which will reveal whether holiday‑quarter performance met the newly raised guidance. ^[52]

Bottom line: Walmart enters December as a rare blend of defense and growth

As of the close on Friday, November 28 — the last trading session before the December 1 open — Walmart stock checks several boxes that investors tend to like heading into year‑end:

Defensive demand from groceries and everyday essentials
Growth drivers in e‑commerce, advertising and fintech/logistics partnerships
A decades‑long dividend growth record and significant physical footprint
A clear technology and AI narrative, underscored by the upcoming Nasdaq move

At the same time, the stock’s all‑time‑high valuation, a still‑fragile consumer and the pressure to deliver on elevated guidance mean that expectations are high. Any stumble in holiday numbers or guidance updates early in 2026 could provoke a reassessment.

For now, though, the consensus from the late‑November news and analyst commentary is that Walmart heads into the December 1, 2025 session as a leader among retail and consumer‑staples names, with Wall Street broadly expecting moderate further upside — as long as the company keeps executing on its tech‑powered, value‑oriented strategy. ^[53]

Note: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

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