DOW Jumps 140 Points as Retail Spending Surges—While Walmart Warns of Price Hikes

Wall Street gets a sugar rush from bullish retail data—just as Walmart drops the inflation bomb. Classic.

Retail spending figures beat expectations, sending the DOW soaring. Meanwhile, Walmart’s price hike warning lingers like a bad aftertaste. The market giveth, and the corporations taketh away.

Active traders cheer the rally, while long-term investors side-eye the looming inflation threat. Another day in the casino.

Walmart warns about impending ‘double-digit’ price increases

Adding to inflation concerns, Walmart CFO John David Rainey warned that the retail giant may be forced to implement double-digit price increases on some items. As a result, shares of Walmart—typically viewed as a defensive stock in inflationary environments, fell 1.05%.

Among other major firms, UnitedHealthcare continued its decline, losing 13.74% after reports revealed a potential criminal investigation against the company for potential Medicare fraud. Notably, just a day before this revelation, the company’s CEO, Andrew Witty, abruptly stepped down from his position.

One of the new entrants on the S&P 500, Coinbase, faced its own upheaval. The stock was down 6.58% after CEO Brian Armstrong revealed a $20 million ransom note against the exchange. Still, the likelier explanation for the stock drop in its stock price is a recent SEC investigation against it.

The SEC probe is about whether the exchange reported accurate numbers when it claimed it had more than 100 million verified users. The figure is significant, as the exchange featured it in its 2021 IPO filing, directed at potential investors.