If a stock chart ever looked like a cliff, TargetTGT

would be it. The discount retailer plunged 22% on Wednesday after, ironically, missing its target on earnings. The shortfall marks Target’s largest earnings miss in two years, and it comes as rivals TJ MaxxTJX

and WalmartWMT

both beat earnings, with Walmart even raising its outlook — signaling flags redder than Target’s own logo.

• Target’s earnings per share fell 19.6% short of Wall Street’s expectations ($1.85 vs. $2.30 expected) — while revenue fell a tad behind projections by 0.89% ($25.67B vs. $25.9B expected), marking its first revenue miss since Aug. 2023.
• Despite slashing prices on 5K items in May and another 2K in October, customer traffic increased only 2.4%, with in-store sales declining 1.9%.

Behind the plunge: The stumbles go beyond the numbers, facing three core headwinds. First, despite the ongoing discounts, shoppers held off on purchases until promotional events like October’s heavily discounted Circle Week. Second, the retailer’s heavy reliance on non-essential items left it exposed to “lingering softness in discretionary categories” — with only 23% of sales coming from food. Add costly supply chain headaches from rushing shipments during the port strike scare, and you’ve got a recipe for a quarterly earnings disaster.