, Columnist
Walmart Discovers the Consumer Is Still Confident
Despite a trade war and fears of a downturn, the retailer remains optimistic.
Tariffs and inverted yield curves? No worries yet.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
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A day after a stock market rout driven by recession fears, Walmart Inc. issued a second-quarter earnings report that should provide at least a sliver of solace: Consumers have been out in force spending at its big-box stores.
The mega-retailer reported on Thursday that U.S. comparable sales rose 2.8% from a year earlier in the quarter. That growth looks especially robust when considering it comes on top of a 4.5% increase in the same period last year, which was Walmart’s best quarterly comparable sales growth in more than a decade.