Retail: Target, Wal-Mart lead Dow slump

The Dow Industrial Average fell more than 1,100 points in one day this week, led by disappointing earnings from big retailers, said Orla McCaffrey and Caitlin Ostroff in The Wall Street Journal. “Major retailers said their profits were hurt by rising costs, sluggish sales, and supply-chain disruptions.” Target and Wal-Mart both posted their worst one-day stock drops since the Black Monday crash of 1987, with Target losing a quarter of its value in one day. The precipitous decline prompted Wall Street “to wrestle anew with the idea that the global economy could be headed for a recession.”