Target Cuts Prices on About 5,000 Items

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published May 20, 11:10AM EDT

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Target Cuts Prices on About 5,000 Items — © Joe Raedle / Getty Images News via Getty Images

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Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT | TGT Price Prediction) has cut prices on about 5,000 items for reasons only known by company management.
Meanwhile, Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) has been outperforming its rival.

Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) has cut prices on about 5,000 items for reasons only known by company management. Retailers rarely do this if they are making money from the inventory.

Most price cuts are in a few categories. According to the retailer, “Consumers will enjoy savings on everyday items such as milk, meat, bread, soda, fresh fruit and vegetables, snacks, yogurt, peanut butter, coffee, diapers, paper towels, pet food, and more.” Interestingly, its largest competitor, Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT), is the number one grocery store in America. Many analysts believe that people who come to Walmart for groceries also buy other items.

The promotions focus on the big holiday periods: Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day.

Target’s financials and stock price have been weak compared to Walmart’s. In the past year, Target’s stock has been up 5%, while Walmart’s is 25% higher. Walmart’s recent impressive earnings drove its share to an all-time high of $65.

Target’s recent earnings showed revenue rose only 1.6% to $31.5 billion. It said comparable store sales in the current quarter would drop from 3% to 5%.

Target’s numbers are not impressive. It needs a special promotion.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.