Walmart’stop executives said Wednesday consumer behavior would be tougher to predict next year as financial strain pushes customers to be more cautious about spending their dollars.
The retail bellwether saw “anomalous type of behavior” from customers which “made us sit up in our chair” about the health of the consumer and what the purchasing behavior was, Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said at the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference.
About spending in the last two weeks of October being off trend compared to prior months, Rainey said it was “puzzling,” but the retailer did not intend to be “alarmist” in any way.
Walmart’s stock had dropped 8% on Nov. 16 when the company first hinted at October spending during its quarterly earnings.
Rainey at the conference also added that there is nothing “about what we have seen in the consumer” and deflationary pricing that makes the retailer rethink its long-term plans.
Earlier on Wednesday, CEO Doug McMillon in an interview with CNBC said rising credit card balances and dwindling household bank accounts do raise questions about how much consumers would be spending.
Last month, Walmart had said that US consumers were acting more cautious with spending during the holiday season.
But data on Thanksgiving weekend showed that deep discounts on everything from beauty products and toys to electronics lured shoppers tospendbringing a relief to worried retailers.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
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“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
Advertisement
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”