A number of months after suggesting a sales turnaround is afoot, Goal (TGT) has offered up an earnings day misfire from start to complete.
On Wednesday, the retail giant badly missed third quarter Wall Street profit forecasts, slashed full-year guidance after raising it the previous quarter, and took a cautious stance on holiday sales and profit.
Its shares sank 16% in premarket trading on the heels of the discharge of its quarterly results.
Against this, its rival Walmart (WMT) beat expectations again — significantly — in quarterly same-store sales performance, online sales growth, and overall narrative to investors, in its own report on Tuesday. Goal has been slashing prices on food and other on a regular basis essentials this 12 months in a bid to compete.
On a call with reporters, Goal execs offered up little explanation for the U-turn in results, except to notice that customers are spending “cautiously” in more-discretionary departments equivalent to home goods. The corporate also felt the brunt of unplanned costs in its supply chain because it added more inventory than it sold within the quarter — never a recipe for achievement for a retailer.
Goal’s veteran Chairman and CEO Brian Cornell told Yahoo Finance it has the “appropriate approach” for the vacation season, but is “guiding for some conservatism.”
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Cornell added the vacation shopping season is off to a “really good start” but acknowledged the most important days are ahead of it. Walmart CFO John David Rainey told Yahoo Finance on Tuesday it has seen a brisk begin to the season.
Goal stock was up 9% 12 months thus far ahead of the outcomes, lagging the S&P 500’s 24% advance. Walmart’s stock was up a cool 64% on the 12 months.
“The stock seems constrained within the near term given the uncertainty of the vacation, through which Goal faces headwinds from a promotionally/event-driven consumer and sure acutely benefitted, relative to other retailers, from the helpful calendar a 12 months ago (now a headwind), together with tariffs,” JPMorgan analyst Christopher Horvers wrote in a client note.
Horvers added: “Like they accomplish that fairly often for retailers, comparable sales and gross margin matter, with the previous a comparatively low bar and the latter a high bar. Given uncertainty and share losses, we see Goal as unlikely to roll forward to 2026 valuation anytime soon.”
Here’s what Goal reported for the third quarter, in comparison with Wall Street analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
