Wal-Mart thinks its struggles are symptomatic of “challenging economy”

Depending on who you talk to, the recession may or may not be over. I don’t think Wal-Mart would be on the “no more recession” side, judging by their latest warning that was issued alongside a disappointing adjustment to their earnings outlook.

While reporting sales that have been lower than expected and issuing the afore-mentioned adjustment to their expected earnings outlook, Wal-Mart mentioned that the economy is currently “challenging”, which seemed at the time a lot less like scapegoating and a lot more like what is intentioned as a helpful (if a little scary) warning to others about the state of the economy right now.

Should we put any stock into it (no pun intended)? It would seem so. After all, a company as huge as Wal-Mart can really give us some information on how the country as a whole is doing. Furthermore, other retail outlets, including Kohls, have talked about decreased earnings, too.

Then again, you always have to wonder whether something like this is caused by the all too likely culprit known as “competition”. Wal-Mart has seen increased competition from organic food retailers in recent years, which have all seen increases in their own stock values, as we discussed earlier this month. Furthermore, companies like Amazon continue to eat away at their market share when it comes to electronics and other products.

But are these specialty retailers a real threat to a juggernaut like Wal-Mart, which has long been if not the top source for any one specific type of item, the place that Americans go to get a little bit (or a lot) of everything? Let’s hope so, unless you’re a Wal-Mart investor. After all, we don’t need bad economic news right now, and hearing that spending is down across the board would not bode well for anybody.