Chicago, IL – December 12, 2025 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Walmart, Inc. WMT, Target Corp. TGT, The Kroger Co. KR and Costco Wholesale Corp. COST.
Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:
Walmart Stock Up +25% in 2025; What’s the Smart Move for 2026?
Walmart, Inc. has been a strong outperformer in 2025, with shares advancing 25.3% year to date. The rally underscores investor confidence in Walmart’s consistent execution, rapid omnichannel expansion and continued share gains across household income segments, even in a choppy consumer environment.
These upsides have helped the world’s largest retailer to outperform the industry’s growth of 24.6%, the Zacks Retail – Wholesale sector’s increase of 6.7% and the S&P 500’s gain of 18.6% so far this year. Walmart shares have also fared better than major peers like Target Corp., The Kroger Co. and Costco Wholesale Corp. While Kroger inched up 0.1%, Costco and Target declined 4.4% and 30%, respectively, year to date.
What’s Driving Walmart Stock Higher?
Walmart’s steady rally this year is backed by a healthy set of fundamentals. The retailer continues to post broad-based sales and profit growth, with its third-quarter fiscal 2026 performance reflecting strength across Walmart U.S., Sam’s Club and International.
The company’s e-commerce momentum remains exceptional, growing 27% in the third quarter, with U.S. e-commerce up 28% and International up 26%. Faster delivery (35% of U.S. store-fulfilled orders were delivered in under three hours), combined with improved marketplace growth and expanding digital capabilities, has helped Walmart deepen customer engagement.
Walmart’s omnichannel ecosystem is growing, benefiting from strong grocery traffic, improving trends in general merchandise and notable strength in fashion. Membership income also remains a highlight across both Sam’s Club and Walmart+, with newer benefits like OnePay and improved delivery speed driving record net adds. International operations continue to provide a meaningful growth lift, led by strong results from Flipkart, China and Walmex.
Walmart’s business mix is shifting toward higher-margin streams, including advertising, membership and improved e-commerce unit economics, now representing about one-third of consolidated adjusted operating income. Early investments in automation and AI are also helping the company expand fulfillment efficiency and support margin performance.
