How bad will it be?

Target and other retailers are due to report May sales results this Thursday, and things weren’t looking good for Target as of May 19. That’s when the company reported first-quarter results and indicated May sales were flat compared with the prior year and below expectations for a low- to mid-single digit increase. The slow start to the month wasn’t expected to detract from a 2% to 4% second-quarter increase, but with analysts’ now expecting May results to be negative Target will have a lot of ground to make up in June and July if it sticks with it guidance.

So what went wrong in May? CFO Doug Scovanner blamed the weather, but qualified his response during a first quarter conference call.

“As you know, we don't like talking about the weather, but in a period of time as short as the period you’re focused on the weather can never be ignored, and the weather wasn't very good during the first two weeks of May,” CFO Doug Scovanner explained. “Now, I'll quickly observe, as I have many times before, that over time on average the weather is average, so you shouldn't hear us talking much about the weather, except when questions are asked about such a short period of time.”