Target | featured news

Target Corp posted lower quarterly profit on Wednesday, as sales of food and value-priced items only partially mitigated some weakness it saw when holiday shoppers held back from discretionary spending in an uncertain economy.

A bevy of big-name retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best-Buy Co. and Target Corp., are teaming up to create a company that will give customers another way to make purchases: with their cellphones.

Target (TGT) and Macy’s (M) announced that June same store sales were below analyst estimates. Sales at Target increased by 2.1 percent, below expectations of a 2.8 percent gain. Macy’s reported a 1.2 percent increase in same-store sales, well below the estimate of 2.3 percent.

Target Corp. said Thursday a key sales figure rose 1.1 percent in April, but it fell short of analysts' expectations. Analysts expected the discount retailer to post a 2.8 percent increase in stores opened at least one year, according to Thomson Reuters. That metric is a key gauge of a retailer's health because it excludes results from stores recently opened or closed.

Target Corp. is reporting a 5.2 percent drop in earnings for the fourth quarter, as the retailer pushed big discounts to get tight-fisted shoppers to buy during the holiday season.

Retail sales at major chain stores beat analysts' expectations, rising 4.4% year-over-year in August, according to Thomson Reuters' tally of 23 retailers. Discounters, including Target Corp. and Costco Wholesale Corp., did well as East Coasters stocked up before Hurricane Irene.

Social networking website Facebook is dipping into the brick-and-mortar world by selling gift cards at retailer Target that can be used toward purchasing virtual products for games hosted on the site.

Target meets analyst expectations with its fiscal second quarter earnings.

A man walked into a North Carolina Target store on Sunday and shot an employee he had had a previous relationship with before turning the gun on himself, police said.

An off-duty L.A. County sheriff's deputy arrested a woman Monday on suspicion of stabbing four people in a Target store in West Hollywood.