Walmart shares close higher on Wednesday, retailer names PayPal’s finance head John Rainey as its next Chief Financial Officer

Walmart Inc (WMT) said earlier this week it had appointed John Rainey, PayPal Holdings Inc’s finance head, as its next Chief Financial Officer.

After having spent nearly seven years with PayPal, Rainey will assume the CFO role on June 6th.

He is to replace Brett Biggs, who has been Walmart’s finance head since 2015 and who announced his departure from the company in late 2021.

The world’s biggest retailer also said Biggs would become an adviser until his leave from the company in January 2023.

John Rainey, who sits on the board of directors at Nasdaq, was also Chief Financial Officer at United Airlines.

Walmart shares closed higher for the seventh time in the past ten trading sessions in New York on Wednesday. It has also been the sharpest single-session gain since February 17th. The stock went up 2.60% ($3.99) to $157.22, after touching an intraday high at $157.79. The latter has been a price level not seen since April 11th ($158.24).

Shares of Walmart Inc have risen 8.66% so far in 2022 compared with a 6.71% loss for the benchmark index, S&P 500 (SPX).

In 2021, Walmart’s stock went up 0.37%, thus, it underperformed the S&P 500, which registered a 26.89% gain.

Analyst stock price forecast and recommendation

According to TipRanks, at least 17 out of 23 surveyed investment analysts had rated Walmart Inc’s stock as “Buy”, while 6 – as “Hold”. The median price target on the stock stands at $164.86.