Target’s Results: Now that’s a "Miss"

Seems like only minutes after hitting the “publish” button on my Wal-Mart (WMT) post, Target (TGT) made my point.

Target (TGT) today reported that its net retail sales for the four weeks ended August 2, 2008 increased 4.7 percent to $4,566 million from $4,363 million for the four weeks ended August 4, 2007. On this same basis, July comparable store sales declined 1.2 percent.

“Our comparable store sales performance in July was near the low end of our -1% to +1% planned range,” said Gregg Steinhafel, president and chief executive officer of Target Corporation.

Uh, Greg. Let’s do a little basic math here. -1.2% is actually “greater than” -1.0% remember this little sign, -1.2 > 1.0? I think it was from “Intro to Algebra”? It is not “near the low end” Greg, it is officially “past it”.

Analysts expected a decline of -.4% once again proving the fruitlessness is listening to them. The news here is not that Target missed analysts expectations just as it was not in the case of Wal-Mart. The point here is that Target missed their own expectations meaning things for them are even worse than they thought they were. Perhaps the worse news is that their CEO does not seem to realize they missed it.

Year to date, Target comp sales are down .6% vs a 4.6% rise at this time last year. That, is not good no mater what the expectations.

Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long WMT, none

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