Is It Time to Buy, Sell, or Hold Wal-Mart?

Investors are always trying to beat their respective benchmark, and for many that's the Dow Jones Industrial Average, but investors will never beat the market by investing in it passively. They can however, overweight great companies and underweight or ditch the losers.

So in an effort to beat the Dow with its own components, Austin is taking a buy, sell, or hold stance on each individual stock.

Up today is Wal-Mart, one of Austin's favorite retailers. After a bit of a pop and corresponding multiple expansion over the past few months, he's inclined to give Wal-Mart a hold rating. The company was a great value a few months ago, but it's now trading at more expensive levels. Despite being an incredibly well-run company, its size could act as an upside limiter in the future, so Austin suggests shareholders be happy collecting their great dividend for now and, if shares come down to levels like we saw at the beginning of the year, adding to their positions a bit.

Wal-Mart is part of the illustrious dividend aristocrats list, but they still weren't good enough to qualify for our ranking of The 3 Dow Stocks Dividend Investors Need. Uncover those picks that did today: Just click here and read more about our three favorite dividends on the Dow.

The article Is It Time to Buy, Sell, or Hold Wal-Mart? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Austin Smith has no positions in the stocks mentioned above. The Motley Fool owns shares of Amazon.com. Motley Fool newsletter services recommend Amazon.com. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 - 2012 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.