Target二季度业绩超预期并上调全年指引，但盘中已明显重定价

Brian: Target out with earnings, uh beat for them, uh guidance lifts. Michael Fadelki telling me, hey Brian, uh you're returning around here. You know, I like the uh the progress we're seeing in the business. said back to school is off to an encouraging start. and look, I get it. I mean he's got a lot to be proud of but I just I need to see more from Target.

Brooke: I think that the street is also looking for more. They're saying, okay, this was one good quarter, but how exactly do you sustain that momentum? And that was one of a key questions that reporters asked CEO Michael Fadelki yesterday on a call. and he admitted that this is sort of the crux of the turnaround. They're continuing to invest in different areas that consumers are interested in, also price points. We know that over the past year, Target cut about 10,000 items prices. In addition to that, when they came to back to school, they also made sure that about 95% of back to school items were the same or less than what they cost last year. But we're continuing to see high single digit growth when it comes to food, when it comes to beauty. They really invested in their grocery department, those grocery aisles. and he really told me that they want Target to be seen as a place for discovery when it comes to not just apparel, but also for food, of course, something that Walmart has went on in the past recent years.

Brian: Brooke, I just need more lemons in my target at 2:00 p.m. on a Saturday. There's no reason I should walk into a target at this point given their vast operations and not be able to get a lemon or an apple. I mean, it's true. They know it, they know that I know. Uh Brooke, but another key topic here, of course, is tariffs. Home Depot talked about it yesterday. Some of these retailers are starting to get big checks back from tariff refunds. I asked Fadelki how he plans to spend it. Uh he didn't actually say, hey, we're going to be cutting prices pretty significantly uh over the next few quarters. So, uh I found that interesting.

Brooke: Definitely, and that did benefit their earnings per share this past quarter. They got about a $1.65 benefit. Also hearing from Home Depot, that company received about $730 million in tariff refunds. Also heard from Lowes this morning. That company said that their earnings uh received an 11 cent benefit from those tariff refunds as well. Now, low uh Target rather, certainly investing in prices perhaps, but also Home Depot saying that those tariff refunds were able to offset higher costs when it comes to fuel, when it comes to uh plywood, when it comes to different items, resin, metals, fuel, energy. So those offset definitely offset the higher costs that we're seeing within other commodities as well.