Dow Today: Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) Lower

Editor's Note: TheStreet ratings do not represent the views of TheStreet's staff or its contributors. Ratings are established by computer based on metrics for performance (which includes growth, stock performance, efficiency and valuation) and risk (volatility and solvency). Companies with poor cash flow or high debt levels tend to earn lower ratings in our model.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) is trading down 71.0 points (-0.5%) at 12,938 as of Monday, Nov 26, 2012, 12:35 p.m. ET. During this time, 232.2 million shares of the 30 Dow components have changed hands vs. an average daily trading volume of 617.4 million. The NYSE advances/declines ratio sits at 945 issues advancing vs. 2,000 declining with 119 unchanged.

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Holding back the Dow today is Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE:WMT), which is lagging the broader Dow index with a 57-cent decline (-0.8%) bringing the stock to $69.62. This single loss is lowering the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 4.39 points or roughly accounting for 6.2% of the Dow's overall loss. Volume for Wal-Mart Stores currently sits at 4.4 million shares traded vs. an average daily trading volume of 7.2 million shares.

Wal-Mart Stores has a market cap of $231.57 billion and is part of the services sector and retail industry. Shares are up 17.5% year to date as of Friday's close. The stock's dividend yield sits at 2.3%.

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 14.2, 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, revenue growth, good cash flow from operations and increase in net income. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company shows low profit margins.

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