Dow Today: Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) Higher

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) is trading up six points at 12,949 as of Thursday, Jul 5, 2012, 1:35 p.m. ET. During this time, 287 million shares of the 30 Dow components have changed hands vs. an average daily trading volume of 699.7 million. The NYSE advances/declines ratio sits at 1,391 issues advancing vs. 1,550 declining with 149 unchanged.

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The Dow component leading the way higher looks to be Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE:WMT), which is sporting a 16-cent gain (+0.2%) bringing the stock to $70.92. This single gain is lifting the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 1.21 points or roughly accounting for 20.2% of the Dow's overall gain. Volume for Wal-Mart Stores currently sits at 6.5 million shares traded vs. an average daily trading volume of 11.7 million shares.

Wal-Mart Stores has a market cap of $239.39 billion and is part of the services sector and retail industry. Shares are up 18.4% year to date as of Tuesday's close. The stock's dividend yield sits at 2.2%.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. operates retail stores in various formats worldwide. It operates retail stores, restaurants, discount stores, supermarkets, supercenters, hypermarkets, warehouse clubs, apparel stores, Sam's Clubs, and neighborhood markets, as well as walmart.com; and samsclub.com. The company has a P/E ratio of 15.2, equal to the average retail industry P/E ratio and below the S&P 500 P/E ratio of 17.7.

TheStreet Ratings rates Wal-Mart Stores as a buy. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, growth in earnings per share, increase in net income, revenue growth and good cash flow from operations. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company shows low profit margins.

• You can view the full Wal-Mart Stores Ratings Report.

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