Target Stock (TGT): Comparable Sales, Margins and the 2022 Inventory Hit
Michael Whitman
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Trading since 2017, full-time since 2020
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YouTube creator, 137K subscribers
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Published 2026-11-07
Target stock (TGT) is the share of Target Corporation, the Minneapolis retailer that ran 1,995 stores at the end of its 2025 fiscal year. At the November 6, 2026 close of $158.41 it traded at 16.4 times trailing earnings with a 2.93% dividend yield.
Target stock (TGT) is the share of Target Corporation, the Minneapolis discount retailer with close to 2,000 stores. Every quote page shows the same price, P/E and yield. None of them shows the two things that decide this stock: comparable sales, and how much of each sales dollar Target keeps. In 2022 the second of those fell apart in a single quarter, and the share price has not been back to its 2021 high since. This page measures both, with dates.
Target’s price, two P/Es and the dividend
Price is the November 6, 2026 close. Earnings, equity and shares come from the 10-Q for the quarter ended August 1, 2026, filed August 28. Target’s third-quarter 2026 report was not out on November 7; StockAnalysis lists it for November 18.
| metric | value | as of | source |
|---|---|---|---|
| share price (close) | $158.41 | Nov 6, 2026 | Yahoo Finance daily close |
| trailing diluted EPS | $9.64 | 4 quarters to Aug 1, 2026 | 10-Q filed Aug 28, 2026 |
| P/E, trailing | 16.4x | Nov 6, 2026 | price ÷ trailing EPS |
| P/E, fiscal 2025 EPS of $8.13 | 19.5x | Nov 6, 2026 | 10-K filed Mar 11, 2026 |
| price-to-sales | 0.67x | Nov 6, 2026 | trailing revenue of $107.7 billion |
| price-to-book | 4.03x | Aug 1, 2026 | book value of $39.28 a share |
| quarterly dividend | $1.16 | declared Jun 11, 2026 | company release |
| dividend yield | 2.93% | Nov 6, 2026 | $4.64 a year ÷ price |
| market value | $71.97 billion | Nov 6, 2026 | 454,296,736 shares on the 10-Q cover |
| comparable sales | +3.8% | Q2 2026 | 8-K filed Aug 19, 2026 |
TGT closed 2025 at $97.75, so it was up 62.1% in 2026 to November 6, against 12.7% for Walmart over the same dates. Its record close was $266.39 on November 16, 2021, and its 52-week high close was $169.89 on August 24, 2026.
How it works: comps, gross margin and Target’s fiscal calendar
Comparable sales compare sales at stores and digital channels open at least a year with the same period a year earlier. Target splits them into stores and digital, and into traffic (number of transactions) and average ticket.
Gross margin rate is what is left of sales after the cost of the goods, as Target reports it; markdowns, freight and shrink all come out of it. Operating margin here is operating income divided by total revenue, from the XBRL filings.
Why thin margins matter. Target turned 4.9% of fiscal 2025 revenue into operating income. A retailer on a 5% margin feels a one-point change far more than a company on 30%: one point of Target’s $104.8 billion fiscal 2025 revenue is $1.05 billion, about a fifth of that year’s $5.12 billion operating income.
The fiscal calendar. Target’s fiscal year ends on the Saturday nearest January 31, so fiscal 2025 ran from February 2, 2025 to January 31, 2026. Fiscal 2017 and 2023 had 53 weeks.
Target’s comps, margins and inventory by fiscal year
Comparable sales, traffic, gross margin rate and store counts are from the MD&A of the 10-K for fiscal 2016, 2019, 2022 and 2025. Operating margin and year-end inventory are from XBRL.
| fiscal year | comparable sales | traffic | gross margin rate | operating margin | inventory at year end | stores |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | -0.5% | -0.8% | 29.7% | 6.9% | $8.31 billion | 1,802 |
| 2017 | +1.3% | +1.6% | 28.8% | 5.8% | $8.60 billion | 1,822 |
| 2018 | +5.0% | +5.0% | 28.4% | 5.5% | $9.50 billion | 1,844 |
| 2019 | +3.4% | +2.7% | 28.9% | 6.0% | $8.99 billion | 1,868 |
| 2020 | +19.3% | +3.7% | 28.4% | 7.0% | $10.65 billion | 1,897 |
| 2021 | +12.7% | +12.3% | 28.3% | 8.4% | $13.90 billion | 1,926 |
| 2022 | +2.2% | +2.1% | 23.6% | 3.5% | $13.50 billion | 1,948 |
| 2023 | -3.7% | -2.4% | 27.5% | 5.3% | $11.89 billion | 1,956 |
| 2024 | +0.1% | +1.4% | 28.2% | 5.2% | $12.74 billion | 1,978 |
| 2025 | -2.6% | -2.2% | 27.9% | 4.9% | $12.30 billion | 1,995 |
Gross margin rates for fiscal 2017 to 2019 are the ones restated in the fiscal 2019 10-K; fiscal 2017 had 53 weeks.
Target’s 2022 inventory hit
The build-up. Target came out of 2020 and 2021 with comparable sales of +19.3% and +12.7% and its widest operating margins of the decade. It ordered for more of the same. On April 30, 2022, inventory was $15.08 billion, 43.1% more than a year earlier, while that quarter’s revenue was only 4.0% higher.
The first quarter. On May 18, 2022, Target reported a first-quarter operating margin of 5.3%, against 9.8% a year earlier. Its release blamed higher markdowns “driven largely by inventory impairments” and “costs related to freight, supply chain disruptions.” TGT fell 24.9% that day, its worst earnings day since at least 2005. Walmart had fallen 11.4% the day before on its own report, and fell another 6.8% alongside Target.
The second quarter. Target chose to clear the excess. Its gross margin rate fell to 21.5% from 30.4%, and the operating margin to 1.2%, the lowest of the 30 quarters in our series. The release called it “gross margin pressure from actions to reduce excess inventory.” For fiscal 2022 the gross margin rate was 23.6%, against 28.3% the year before.
After the hit. Inventory was lower than a year earlier in every quarter from January 2023 to August 2024, down as much as 17.2%. Margins recovered to 5.3% in fiscal 2023, but comparable sales then fell in two of the next three years, and the share price did not make its low until November 2025.
A worked example: what is inside Target’s P/E
- Trailing EPS. Diluted EPS for the first half of fiscal 2026 was $5.83. Add fiscal 2025’s $8.13 and take away the first half of fiscal 2025, $4.32: $5.83 + $8.13 - $4.32 = $9.64. Then $158.41 ÷ $9.64 = 16.4 times.
- The tariff refunds. In the second quarter of 2026, gross margin was 33.7% and operating margin 9.6%, and the release said both included 3.7 points of benefit from tariff refunds. On that quarter’s $26.54 billion of revenue, 3.7 points is about $982 million of operating income, our arithmetic. Without it, the quarter’s operating margin would have been about 5.9%, against 5.2% a year earlier.
- On full-year earnings. Using fiscal 2025 EPS of $8.13, which had no refunds, the P/E is 19.5 times.
- The 2022 lesson in P/E terms. At the end of fiscal 2021, TGT traded at 15.4 times that year’s record EPS of $14.10. Fiscal 2022 EPS fell to $5.98, and a year later, with the price down, the P/E was 28.2 times. A P/E ratio built on peak margins looked ordinary right before the margins went.
The dividend. The $1.16 quarterly dividend, declared on June 11, 2026, is $4.64 a year: 2.93% of the price, 48.1% of trailing EPS and 57.1% of fiscal 2025 EPS. The company’s release said 2026 “is on track to be the 55th consecutive year” of annual increases and said the September 1 payment would be its 236th consecutive dividend since October 1967. Dividends declared per share rose from $2.36 in fiscal 2016 to $4.54 in fiscal 2025. See payout ratio, dividend yield and Dividend Aristocrats for the general arithmetic.
TGT’s drawdowns: 2007, 2021 and the 2026 rebound
A drawdown is the fall from the highest earlier close.
2007 to 2009. From $70.14 on July 13, 2007, TGT fell 63.8% to $25.37 on March 9, 2009, and first closed above the 2007 high on April 25, 2013, 5.8 years after the peak.
2021 to 2025. From the $266.39 record on November 16, 2021, TGT fell 68.6% to $83.68 on November 20, 2025, the day after its third-quarter 2025 report, 1,465 days later. Walmart, by contrast, fell 26.0% from April 21 to June 17, 2022, and was back above that high by July 2023.
2026. From the November 20, 2025 low, TGT rose 89.3% to $158.41. It remained 40.5% below the 2021 record.
The original data: 97 Target earnings days since 2005
Earnings days. We pulled every 8-K Target filed under Item 2.02, results of operations, from February 2005 to August 2026, and left out one that carried no results: the February 11, 2026 filing announcing executive changes. That leaves 97 earnings days, counting a few sales and results updates filed between regular reports from 2005 to 2014. Target releases results before the open, so the reaction day is the filing day; 12 of the 8-Ks, all from 2005 to 2014, were accepted by the SEC later that same day, and every one since 2015 was accepted before the open.
The median earnings-day move was 3.08%, against 0.86% on the 5,322 other trading days in the same span, 3.6 times as large. A move of 5% or more came on 29 of the 97 earnings days (29.9%) but on 2.0% of other days. TGT closed higher on 52 of 97 earnings days (53.6%), against 50.7% of other days, which is within what chance alone produces. The worst days were -24.9% on May 18, 2022, -22.0% on November 20, 2024 and -13.1% on November 16, 2022; the best were +20.4% on August 21, 2019 and +17.8% on November 15, 2023. Since 2021 the median has been 6.09% across 23 reports, 10 of them up, and 7 of them down by 5% or more.
Download the data: quarterly margin and inventory and all 97 earnings days with SEC acceptance times. Anyone may reuse them with a credit and a link under our site license.
| Dataset | Covers | Pages citing it | Download |
|---|---|---|---|
| Target quarterly revenue, operating margin and inventory, 2019-2026 | 30 fiscal quarters, from the quarter ended May 4, 2019 to the quarter ended August 1, 2026 | 1 | Quarterly margin and inventory (CSV) |
| TGT earnings-day moves, 2005-2026 | 97 days on which a Target 8-K under Item 2.02 with results first reached the market | 0 | TGT earnings-day moves (CSV) |
When it fails: positive comps, one-off quarters and a 55-year streak
Strong comps can hide a margin problem. Fiscal 2022 comparable sales were +2.2%, positive, in the year operating income fell from $8.95 billion to $3.85 billion.
One quarter can carry one-off items. The second quarter of 2026 included tariff refunds, and the first quarter of fiscal 2025 included interchange fee settlement gains. Trailing figures inherit both; check the release before comparing quarters.
A dividend streak is history. Fifty-five years of increases describe what the board has done, not a promise about the next declaration.
Fiscal quarters do not line up with the calendar. Target’s quarters end about a month after calendar quarters, and fiscal 2017 and 2023 had an extra week, which added sales to those years. Comparing Target’s quarter with Walmart’s, or with monthly government retail data, means checking the end dates first, and a 53-week year flatters its growth against the next one.
Our ratios age. The next report, listed for November 18, can change trailing EPS, book value and the share count in one morning. The glance table dates each figure for that reason.
Questions people ask
Why did Target stock drop so much in 2022?
Inventory had grown far faster than sales. Clearing it pushed the second-quarter 2022 operating margin down to 1.2%, and TGT fell 24.9% on May 18, 2022 when the first-quarter margin came in at 5.3%.
Does Target pay a dividend?
Yes: $1.16 a share each quarter after the June 11, 2026 increase, a 2.93% yield at the November 6 close.
Why is Target stock up in 2026?
Comparable sales turned positive (+3.8% in the second quarter, with traffic up 3.6%) after falling in fiscal 2025, and second-quarter earnings doubled to $4.11 a share, helped by tariff refunds.
What are Target’s comparable sales?
Sales at stores and digital channels open at least a year, against a year earlier: -2.6% for fiscal 2025, +3.8% in the second quarter of 2026.
When does Target report earnings?
Four times a year, in early March and in mid-to-late May, August and November, before the market opens.
Related
Start with the P/E ratio and earnings per share, then gross profit for the margin line that broke in 2022 and drawdown for the falls above. On the 2026 refunds, tariffs covers how import duties reach retail prices. For another filing-based stock page, see bank stocks, and for holding retailers through a fund, sector funds.
For another consumer stock read the same way, see Chipotle stock.
This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.