Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. WMT 0.41% is aggressively attempting to adapt to the global shift to e-commerce, and the company’s most recent move is to abandon its plans to take on the Chinese e-commerce market alone. Instead of fighting for market share in an extremely crowded and difficult environment in China, Wal-Mart has decided to turn over control of its Yihaodian Chinese e-commerce platform to JD.Com Inc(ADR) JD 0.33% in exchange for a 5 percent stake in JD.

JD.com is the largest e-commerce rival to market leader Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA 0.14% in China.

Wal-Mart will now have a pore passive stake in the Chinese online marketplace, although it will continue to operate the Yihaodian platform.

“Selling up in return for a 5 percent stake in JD.com is a good way of staying in the space while reducing the risk,” China Market Research Group analyst Ben Cavender explained.

Wal-Mart has been taking similar steps in the United States and China to streamline its brick and mortar operations by closing locations that are struggling financially. Wal-Mart now operates…

Click here to continue reading

Want to learn more about how to profit off the stock market? Or maybe you just want to be able to look sophisticated in front of your coworkers when they ask you what you are reading on your Kindle, and you’d prefer to tell them “Oh, I’m just reading a book about stock market analysis,” rather than the usual “Oh, I’m just looking at pics of my ex-girlfriend on Facebook.” For these reasons and more, check out my book, Beating Wall Street with Common Sense. I don’t have a degree in finance; I have a degree in neuroscience. You don’t have to predict what stocks will do if you can predict what traders will do and be one step ahead of them. I made a 400% return in the stock market over five years using only basic principles of psychology and common sense. Beating Wall Street with Common Sense is now available on Amazon, and tradingcommonsense.com is always available on your local internet!