The retail sector has faced many challenges throughout 2025. Tariffs, soft consumer spending and trends that are always difficult to nail perfectly. And then there is individual company execution risk — some companies thrive while others miss the mark. Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is continuing to win in the retail space, but Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT) just seems to keep stumbling every step of the way.
Strategic investors place their capital where they feel it will be treated best for a certain time period that varies from investor to investor. Right now that has undoubtedly been in favor of Walmart over Target, and the newly announced CEO transition has not acted like it deterred investors’ bullishness.
The post-earnings reaction to Walmart earnings had its stock up 7% at $107.65 late on Thursday morning. Wednesday’s pre-earnings closing price of $100.61 was the lowest adjusted closing price since September 10, but its 52-week range is $79.81 to $109.58. And Walmart is up over 18% year-to-date.
Meanwhile, Target’s drop of 0.9% to $85.32 in Thursday’s late-morning trading was after Thursday’s closing price was down 2.76% on its post-earnings reaction the day before. Target’s 52-week range of $85.27 to $145.08 is only part of the issue here. Even though Target’s stock performance is a dismal -36% year-to-date, Target was a $250+ stock in 2022– it has lost nearly two-thirds of its value over a longer view.
Value investors would argue that Target has been and is still trading at incredibly cheap valuations. The problem with value investing is that low valuations mean very little if there is no clear path for fundamentals to change. Will investors ever care that Target’s dividend yield of over 5% trumps Walmart’s dividend yield of almost 1%?
ALSO READ: THE TOP INVESTING THEMES FOR 2026 (USING A.I.)!!!
Most of Wall Street’s analyst reports have not been issued on the heels of Walmart’s report because it is only hours since its actual earnings report.
Morgan Stanley’s snap report reiterated its Overweight rating and $115 price target on Walmart — noting that the underlying KPIs (US comp, US EBIT growth, US eCommerce growth, and US gross margin) “are healthy, solid, and indicative of market share gain and strong execution.”
BofA’s earnings preview for Walmart was two days earlier, but BofA reiterated its Buy rating and its $125 price objective.
Analysts have very little to say that looks very favorable for Target. Here are the price target cuts that have been seen so far in the last 24 hours:
- Baird reiterated its Neutral rating but lowered its price target to $92 from $100.
- Bernstein reiterated its Underperform rating but lowered its price target to $80 from $87.
- BMO Capital reiterated its Market Perform rating but lowered its price target to $90 from $95.
- BofA Securities reiterated its Underperform rating but lowered its price target to $80 from $93.
- Mizuho reiterated its Neutral rating but lowered its price target to $88 from $94.
- RBC Capital reiterated its Outperform rating but lowered its price target to $99 from $107.
- TD Cowen reiterated its Hold rating but lowered its price target to $90 from $105.
So far, two analysts have maintained their ratings and pre-earnings price targets. DA Davidson was a standout report from the cadre of analysts covering Target. It reiterated its Buy rating and maintained its price target at $108 (after lowering the target from $115 in October). Roth Capital reiterated its Neutral rating and maintained its price target at $90. Truist is the one standout that raised its price target to $90 from $83, but the firm still only maintained its Hold rating.
Target is now valued at less than 12-times expected earnings for the current year, but its earnings per share have been in decline. And if Wall Street is right, 2026 will mark the third consecutive year of declining sales. Walmart was valued at a much higher 38-times expected earnings, but it keeps managing to post higher annual revenues.
DISCLAIMER — All analyst ratings, price targets and opinions have been referenced to each firm by name in this report. Oggonomics has no formal ratings or price targets regarding Target or Walmart shares. These views shared by Oggonomics on Target and Walmart are simple mathematical and performance based metrics, and they are not intended to represent any recommendation to buy or sell these or related stocks.
