Wal-Mart's recent acquisition of Jet.com seems to be upping its e-commerce presence and could be "poking the bear" of Amazon, Barclays analyst Karen Short told CNBC's "Power Lunch" on Wednesday.
Short reiterated her position on Wal-Mart in a Barclays note entitled "Poking the Bear — Why WMT Remains our Top Pick" on Wednesday, keeping her overweight rating with a price target of $82 on the stock.
"Jet brings a whole level of expertise and sophistication that Wal-Mart.com or Wal-Mart wouldn't have been able to develop on their own, so they're basically leapfrogging where Wal-Mart would be had they not made the acquisition," Short told CNBC.
Wal-Mart acquired Jet.com for $3.3 billion back in August.
"With Wal-Mart's bricks-and-mortar, it's an omnichannel presence that clearly, you know, at least when it comes to food, Amazon is struggling with to figure out. And I think when it comes to food, you do need both the bricks-and-mortar and you need the online option, and I think Wal-Mart is well-positioned to have the best of both worlds," she added.
Shares of Wal-Mart are up around 7 percent year-to-date, while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) is down over 3 percent year-to-date, as of midday Wednesday.