The Woolworths Group Ltd (ASX: WOW) share price is avoiding the market selloff on Thursday.
In afternoon trade, the retail giant's shares are up 0.5% to $35.88.
This means the Woolworths share price is now up over 5% since the start of the week.
Why is the Woolworths share price rising today?
Investors have been bidding the Woolworths share price higher today following a largely positive response to the retailer's half year results from brokers.
In case you missed its results, on Wednesday the company reported an 8% increase in group sales to $31,894 million and a 6.5% decline in net profit to $795 million.
While a profit decline is not often celebrated, it is worth noting that this profit was ahead of the market's expectations. Furthermore, it includes $239 million of COVID-related costs.
Management also revealed that the second half has started very positively for its supermarkets, with sales up strongly during the first seven weeks. While the same cannot be said for the Big W business, investors appear more focused on the core business.
What was the response?
Overall, Woolworths' half year results went down well with the market. In fact, the result even managed to coax a couple of fence-sitting brokers into more positive ratings.
One of those is Citi. This morning the broker upgraded the company's shares to a buy rating from neutral and lifted the price target on them by 3.3% to $40.30.
Citi was pleased with its first half performance and believes underlying momentum in the key Australian Foods business has improved since its mid-December trading update.
Combined with food inflation, easing restrictions, falling COVID rates (and therefore likely COVID costs), and margin benefits from customers returning to stores instead of online, Citi feels Woolworths' outlook is improving.
Based on the current Woolworths share price, Citi's price target implies potential upside of 12% over the next 12 months. It is also forecasting a fully franked full year dividend yield of 2.6%, bringing the total potential return on offer to almost 15%.
