Reuters by Sruthi Ramakrishnan, Sayantani Ghosh 10/10/2017
Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) on Tuesday forecast a 40 percent rise in U.S. online sales next year as it ramps up competition with Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), boosting shares of world’s biggest brick-and-mortar retailer to the highest in more than two years.
Wal-Mart also forecast overall net sales would rise by at least 3 percent in the year ending January 2019, and said it would buy back $20 billion of its shares over the next two years.
Wal-Mart shares rose 4.5 percent to close at $84.13, the top driver of gains in the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI and S&P 500 index .SPX.
“We are going to lean into places like technology, e-commerce, international stores,” Wal-Mart Chief Financial Officer Brett Biggs said at the Bentonville, Arkansas company’s annual investor meeting which was webcast.
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