Walmart Stock News

Believe it or not, there are now nine publicly traded U.S. companies worth $1 trillion or more.

It's hard to fathom a world without Walmart (WMT -1.24%). The company opened its first discount store in the early 1960s and conducted its initial public offering (IPO) in October 1970.

Walmart (WMT -1.24%) and Amazon (AMZN 0.73%) are the two largest U.S. companies by sales, in that order. However, Amazon is closing the gap and is likely to soon overtake Walmart.

Walmart said it is likely to miss its 2025 and 2030 targets for reducing planet-warming emissions due to challenges related to energy policy, infrastructure and availability of cost-effective low-carbon technologies.

Everything seems to be going right for the discount behemoth.

Two retail giants have seen their fortunes dramatically diverge. Walmart (WMT -1.96%) shareholders are basking in a record-setting year, with strong growth propelling the stock to a fantastic 81% return thus far in 2024, at the time of writing.

NVIDIA NASDAQ: NVDA isn't the most upgraded stock at the end of the Q3 earnings reporting season, ending a trend that has been in place for nearly two years. While potentially bad news for the market, the reason why should give investors hope that the rally in equities is broadening and the S&P 500 will sustain its uptrend.

Investing can be easy, but not in the way you probably expect. For instance, there's nothing easy about the stock market's stomach-churning ups and downs.