Look for a flood of earnings news from retailers this week. After last week’s guidance from Walmart (WMT) that it would be raising prices because if the Trump tariffs, investors–and the Federal Reserve–will be waiting to see if retailers without Walmart’s pricing and logistics clout will paint an even more dire picture on price increases–and thus future inflation.
Tuesday, May 20, Home Depot (HD) reports first-quarter results before market open.
Wednesday, May 21, Target (TGT) reports first-quarter earnings before market open and Lowe’s (LOW) reports first-quarter earnings before market open, and TJX Companies (TJX) reports before market open.
Thursday, May 22, BJ’s Wholesale Club (BJ) reports before market open and Ross Stores (ROST) reports after market close.
Friday, May 23, Buckle (BKE) reports earnings.
Those reports pretty much cover the retail universe–with the exception of departmentstores.
I expect guidance for the rest of 2025 and comments on the likelihood of price increase due to tariffs will be more important to the financial markets than earnings for the current quarter. (For what it’s worth as a trend indicator, Target is expected to kick off the week with a significant year-over-year drop in earnings. The consensus earnings per share forecast for the quarter is $1.68. The reported earnings per share for the same quarter last year was $2.03.)
It would be nice if companies offered any useful insight on future consumer buying–but I suspect that retailers are as much in the dark on this as everyone else is right now.
