U.S. stocks extend losses after Walmart's 2023 outlook disappoints

By Liz Moyer

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks extended their losses on Tuesday after retail giant Walmart issued a gloomy outlook for 2023.

At 11:25 ET (16:25 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 518 points or 1.5%, while the S&P 500 was down 1.6% and the NASDAQ Composite was down 1.9%.

Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT), the U.S.'s largest retailer forecast full-year earnings that came in below estimates. Consumers are bargain hunting, and that could pressure its margins. Shares of Walmart recovered earlier losses and were trading up 0.6%.

Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD), the home improvement retailer, also issued a profit forecast that was lower than expected after higher supply chain costs and weak demand. Shares of Home Depot fell more than 5%.

Investors had hoped retail earnings would provide some hope that the Federal Reserve was nearing the end of its interest rate hiking. That hope has lifted stocks this year, especially tech stocks.

But recent data on inflation has pointed to still strong trends. The market believes the Fed will raise rates by another quarter of a percentage point when it meets in March and again in May.

On Wednesday, the Fed will release its meeting minutes from earlier this month, providing investors another chance to parse the words of Fed officials to see where they are headed on interest rate policy.

This week's economic data includes another reading of gross domestic product for the fourth quarter, and personal spending and personal income and the Fed's preferred inflation measure, the core personal consumption expenditure index, all due out Friday.

Oil was falling. Crude Oil WTI Futures was flat at $76.53 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures crude fell 1.2% to $83.11 a barrel. Gold Futures was down 0.3% to $1845.