Piper Sandler WMT to "overweight" from "neutral" earlier
Piper Sandler this morning upgraded Walmart Inc (NYSE:WMT) to "overweight" from "neutral," and raised its price target to $210 from $145. The brokerage firm noted subsiding grocery inflation, as well as private label price gaps that drive consumer value and give the retailer leverage with suppliers.
Walmart stock earlier surged to a fresh 52-week high of $160.51, but was last seen down 0.2% at $158.92. The security is bouncing off the $154 level, which has caught pullbacks for the past month, with support from its 40-day moving average. Year-over-year, WMT sports a 20.1% lead.
Call volume is already running at four times the intraday average, with 29,000 calls traded so far, compared to 7,767 puts. Most popular is the weekly 7/28 162.50-strike call, where new positions are being opened.
This penchant for bullish bets has been the norm lately. At the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), WMT's 50-day call/put volume ratio of 2.34 stands higher than all readings from the last 12 months.