New York Aug 17 (IANS) Walmart s share price soared on Thursday as investors focused on the retail giant s strong quarterly revenue gains and shrugged off a net loss linked to the sale of a majority stake in its Brazilian unit.
The Bentonville Arkansas-based company posted a net loss of $861 million for the three months ended July 31 2018 compared with net income of $2.9 billion for the same quarter of 2017 Efe reported.
The net loss was a direct consequence of the company s sale of its majority stake in Walmart Brasil a transaction for which the retailer recorded a $4.8 billion pre-tax loss.
But investors focused much more on the company s total revenues between May and July of $128 billion which were up from $123.4 billion in the same quarter of 2017 and higher than Wall Street s expectations.
Walmart has begun reaping the benefits of a renewed focus on grocery sales in recent months and also has seen strong e-commerce sales growth since redesigning its Web site in a bid to compete with Amazon.
"Thanks to the hard work of our associates we had a great quarter with strong results and momentum across the business. We re pleased with how customers are responding to the way we re leveraging stores and e-commerce to make shopping faster and more convenient " Walmart President & CEO Doug McMillon was quoted as saying in a company press release.
Walmart s share price was up by more than 10 percent shortly after 12.30 pm at $99.52 a share making it by far the biggest gainer Thursday among the Dow 30.

--IANS ahm/