UPDATE: J.P. Morgan Reiterates Neutral on Walmart

In a report published Thursday, J.P. Morgan analyst Christopher Horvers reiterated a Neutral rating on Wal-mart Stores

and maintained its price target of $82.00. In the report, J.P. Morgan says "Traffic at the core U.S. business improved 10 bps sequentially to down 0.4%, contributing to WMT U.S. comps of (0.3%), more or less in line with guidance of flat but below our estimates. Additionally, flat 4Q comp guidance was also lower than our expectations and the Street. We are tweaking lower our FY13 and FY14 EPS estimates to $5.17 and $5.67 from $5.21 and $5.72 previously resulting from 3Q's $0.01 miss and downward revisions to 4Q guidance. We are also introducing our FY15 EPS estimate of $6.24. Our Dec. 2014 $82 price target is based on ~14.5x 2014E EPS (which equates to ~7.9x EV/EBITDA)." Walmart closed on Thursday at $79.08.