DJI: Dow Jones Ticks Up Despite Slowdown in Consumer Spending, Walmart Warning

Retail sales for April rose just 0.1% from a month earlier, missing consensus calls. Walmart said it’ll pass along tariff costs to customers.

🌊 Dow Jones Gains, S&P 500 Follows

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI edged up by 0.7%, or 272 points, on Thursday as investors were grappling with some uncertainty coming from consumers. The 30-stock Wall Street benchmark was joined in green by the S&P 500, which notched its fourth day of gains, up 0.4%.
• Technology wasn’t in style for the day with big tech sliding under the flatline. The tech-dense Nasdaq Composite tumbled 0.2% dragged lower by a 2% loss for Meta META. The social-media giant got hit by a wave of selling after the Wall Street Journal said it’s delaying the release of the Behemoth AI model.

🔔 Retail Sales Slow Down

• Retail sales, a closely watched metric used to gauge consumer spending, rose just 0.1% in April, missing forecasts of a 0.3% increase on a monthly basis. Retail sales rose a revised 1.7% in March.
• April was the month of tariff fears when Donald Trump said he’ll be demanding China and other trading partners pay tax charges of up to 145%. As these tariffs went back and forth, consumer spending ebbed and flowed, but the full effect may take months to show, analysts say.

🏷️ Walmart with the Warning

• Adding more uncertainty into the mix, retail giant Walmart WMT released its first-quarter earnings report — a strong showing — but warned that Trump’s tariffs will result in higher costs along the supply chain. These costs, Walmart said, will be passed on to the end consumer.
• In other words, higher import costs will lead to higher consumer prices. Walmart generates the most revenue of any company out there — $680 billion for the last fiscal year. If it raises prices for its goods, it could lead to higher inflation and chip away at consumers’ purchasing power.