How to Buy Walmart Stock

Known for its size, success and seeming ubiquity, Walmart (ticker symbol: WMT) is a discount retailer that has had a tremendous run on Wall Street. Founded by Sam Walton in 1962, the corporation went public in 1970, debuting at $16.50 per share. Since then, the retail leader has had 11 two-for-one (2:1) stock splits and one three-for-one (3:1) split, with its closing price hitting an all-time high in February 2025 at more than $104. It’s been pointed out that if you’d bought 100 shares of the initial public offering for $1,650, you would have 614,400 shares today. Meanwhile, the company has increased its cash dividend every year since it first paid $.05 in 1974. In the age of Amazon and online shopping, many stock pickers have shunned Walmart, thinking that its days of wild growth are behind it but if you’d like to buy in, there are several ways to purchase shares. 

Ask a financial advisor about the right investments for your portfolio based on your financial goals, risk tolerance and time horizon.

How to Buy Walmart Stock: Direct Investment 

For those who want to skip the middleman, direct investment is an option with Walmart shares. The company makes its stock available to investors, including Walmart employees, through the Computershare system. 

Here are a few key points to know:

• You don’t need a lot of money to get started; the minimum investment for new shareholders is $250 or $25 if you set up a recurring investment. 
• There’s an initial setup fee of $20, and a per transaction fee that applies to both one-time and recurring investments. 
• You’re limited to a maximum yearly investment if you buy shares through Computershare.
• Computershare completes your buy and sell orders as it receives them, so you have no control over the price you pay (or receive, if selling). 

Compared with investing apps and online brokerages that offer no-commission trades, you’ll pay more in fees. That may or may not be a dealbreaker, depending on how you normally prefer to purchase stock.

You’lll need to create a Computershare login to buy shares. If you need assistance or prefer to buy stock over the phone, you can also call 800-438-6278. To stay up to date with the latest shareholder information, you can download the Walmart Investor Relations app on Apple, Android and Windows phones.

When it comes to your dividends, you have two options: either reinvest them or have them deposited in your bank account. There are no fees for automatic reinvesting. Here’s a full breakdown of the fees, minimums and other requirements to buy Walmart stock directly through Computershare.

Direct Investment Fees and Minimums

How to Buy Walmart Stock: Brokerage Account

For many self-directed investors, using a brokerage, especially an online one, probably makes the most sense. While you could theoretically invest in a number of companies through each company’s direct investment plan, a brokerage allows you to do this with just one account. If it’s online, you likely will pay no or low fees. On top of this, you have more control over prices.

Stock trades at brokerages come in two forms: limit orders and market orders. If you’re content with the current price of a stock, you’d enact a market order for the number of shares you want to buy or sell. On the other hand, limit orders let you preset a specific price a stock must hit before your account triggers a purchase or sale. That flexibility is an advantage you won’t get when buying Walmart shares directly through Computershare.

Brokerage Comparison

Some brokerages offer fractional share trading, which allows you to buy partial shares of stocks for as little as $1. You may consider a brokerage that has that option to purchase Walmart stock if you’re starting to invest with a smaller amount of money, or would like to spread your investments out across multiple higher-value stocks.

How to Buy Walmart Stock: Financial Advisors

Working with a financial advisor offers the benefit of professional advice when deciding which stocks to buy or sell. You can tell your advice what you’d like your portfolio to include, and they can help you evaluate those choices against the backdrop of your larger financial plan.

Buying Walmart stock (or any other stock) through an advisor comes with the benefit of their knowledge and expertise. The caveat of working with an advisory firm is that they may have higher fees than both brokerages and direct investment plans. 

However, financial advisors will almost always build clients a holistic financial plan in conjunction with their portfolio. This ultimately drives the cost of their services up, making them potentially unattainable for lower-level investors.

Overview of Walmart

Of Walmart’s nearly 11,000 stores, roughly half are within U.S. borders. There are about 2.1 employees worldwide, including 1.6 million Americans. In addition to its many Walmart locations, the company owns and runs Sam’s Club, a large wholesale chain. Without factoring in Walmart’s earnings, Sam’s Club saw an impressive $84.3 billion in revenue over the 2023 fiscal year. Beyond this, Walmart is now involved in the e-commerce business:

Walmart Overview

Walmart’s Financial Profile

(Past performance does not guarantee future results. Chart from July 2025.)

Walmart has consistently reported strong financials for a half century. And after each stock split, when the share price was halved, the price climbed back up, in effect, doubling investors’ money or more. That said, e-commerce has taken a bite out of Walmart’s earnings, and when the company was struggling to come up with an answer, its stock fell in 2015 from $90.02 in January to $57.87 in November. 

Still, the stock is a dividend aristocrat and retains its blue-chip status. What’s more, some analysts think that Walmart, with its gigantic footprint, may be able to beat Amazon at its own game of free, same-day delivery. In 2019, it announced it would lower shipping costs by using its many stores as distribution centers.

It can be hard to visualize what the long-term returns of a stock can be. But as an example, if you’d invested $1,000 in Walmart stock in 2005, it would’ve been worth roughly $10,277 today, which is a 1,000% return.

Walmart Dividend History and Reinvestment Strategy

Walmart has paid dividends every year since 1974 and has increased its payout annually for decades. This track record makes it a dividend aristocrat, a term for companies that have raised dividends for at least 25 consecutive years. For income-focused investors, this consistency shows that Walmart has been able to share profits with shareholders even during challenging economic times.

Here a few highlights of Walmart’s dividend plan:

• The company currently pays dividends quarterly, meaning investors receive four payments each year. 
• The amount you receive depends on how many shares you own and the dividend per share set by the company’s board. 
• While Walmart’s dividend yield is modest compared to some high-yield stocks, its steady growth helps protect purchasing power over time.

Investors can choose to reinvest their dividends to buy more Walmart shares instead of taking the cash. Through Computershare or a brokerage account, reinvestment happens automatically, with no additional trading fees in most cases. This process allows dividends to compound, meaning each new share you purchase can also earn dividends in the future.

Over the long term, reinvesting dividends can significantly boost total returns. For example, an investor who bought Walmart shares and reinvested dividends over decades would have benefited not only from price appreciation but also from the growing number of shares owned. This strategy can be especially effective for long-term, risk-averse investors who value stability and steady income growth.

Should You Buy Walmart Stock?

Walmart faces plenty of competition in today’s retail world. Discount department stores like Target have long encroached on Walmart’s business. But the increasing dominance of online retailers like Amazon add an entirely new set of considerations if you’re a prospective investor. Walmart’s aforementioned jump into e-commerce is a clear move to adapt to this rapidly changing environment. However, it remains a difficult task to shift your business model when you’re such a large company. It’s also hard to have dramatic growth when you are already pulling in $674 billion in revenue.

So at this point, Walmart doesn’t offer as much upside as some of the contending tech and retail stocks, but it does provide a certain level of stability. The company has proven it can achieve sustained success, and it has a substantial brand awareness. This leaves Walmart stock as a solid equity investment that would fit well in the portfolio of a risk-averse, long-term investor. If you plan on reinvesting your dividends, Walmart is also a great choice.

Bottom Line

If you’re ready to buy Walmart stock, all that remains is to decide how to invest. Whether you buy shares directly, through a brokerage or with the help of your advisor, consider the fees you’ll pay and how that can affect the overall value of your investment. For investors seeking steady returns and dividend income rather than rapid growth, Walmart can be a dependable addition to a diversified portfolio.

Tips for Investment Planning

• If you never know when to sell a stock, you’re not alone. Many people find it easier to buy than to sell. One solution is to have a sale price in mind when you buy the stock. Another is to hire a financial advisor. Finding a financial advisor doesn’t have to be hard. SmartAsset’s free tool matches you with vetted financial advisors who serve your area, and you can have a free introductory call with your advisor matches to decide which one you feel is right for you. If you’re ready to find an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.
• With a soaring bull market, many professionals don’t even try to beat it. Instead, they seek only to track it, which research shows will deliver better returns in the end. This is called passive investing, and instead of researching and following individual stocks, you simply choose your index and the mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) that uses the index as a benchmark.

Photo credit: ©iStock.com/Wolterk, Yahoo Finance, ©iStock.com/AndreyPopov