NEW YORK — U.S. stocks drifted to a mixed finish Nov.
20, though the modest moves for indexes masked some thrashing underneath the surface: Retail giant Target lost more than a fifth of its value after it gave a dour forecast for the holiday shopping season. The S&P 500 closed out Wednesday virtually unchanged after coming back from an early loss of 1 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average eked out a gain of 0.
3 percent, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.1 percent. Target's 21.
4 percent tumble followed its report showed weaker profits and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The retailer also gave a forecast for profit in the upcoming holiday season that was below forecasts. Target's performance stood in stark contrast to rival Walmart, which reported another quarter of stellar sales Tuesday and released optimistic projections for the holiday season.
"I find the Target and Walmart earnings very interesting because we typically see a waterfall type effect when the economy begins to struggle, with shoppers trading down from stores such as Target to Walmart," said JJ Kinahan, CEO of IG North America. "I'm not entirely sure if the move to Walmart is simply a matter of shoppers finding more items they like at Walmart or if this is a potentially concerning economic sign." Besides Target, several lower-priced retailers were among the biggest losers in the S&P 500.
Dollar General fell 4.2 percent, and Dollar Tree sank 2.6 percent.
On the winning end of Wall St.