For more than a year, Target had a story problem. The big-box chain with the red bullseye — once the chic younger sibling of Walmart, the place Americans went for things they actually wanted rather than just things they needed — had become a cautionary tale. Five quarters in a row, the same shoppers who used to fill their carts there were filling them somewhere else. Mostly at Walmart, increasingly through Amazon. Wall Street had a tidy explanation: Target was structurally broken. Too dependent on discretionary stuff like home decor and clothing, too exposed to a cost-conscious consumer, too slow to compete on price and delivery. The shares had been punished accordingly.
Then on Wednesday, May 20, Target posted the kind of quarter that quietly demolishes a narrative. Same-store sales — the number that strips out new openings and tells you whether existing stores are actually attracting more shoppers — rose 5.6%. Total revenue climbed 6.7% to $25.4 billion. Earnings came in at $1.71 a share, comfortably ahead of the $1.46 that analysts had penciled in. The new chief executive, Michael Fiddelke, doubled the company's full-year sales growth forecast to around 4% and barely had to raise his voice doing it. He has been in the job for roughly 90 days.
