Target Hikes Prices Over Tariffs—But Home Depot Doesn’t? Here’s Why
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Target’s raising their prices because of tariffs, but Home Depot isn’t? this is the conversation that’s taking place right now. You know, get the Trumpsters out there saying, see, see, look at Home Depot’s not raising their prices and Walmart, can’t raise yours. And now we’re watching videos, workers inside of Target, you know, watching them, you know, taking videos of themselves, changing the stickers.
prices on a myriad of different items and how high they’re going because of the tariffs. And again, you know, a lot of
Economic ignorance, quite frankly, but that’s always been the case here in this country. Target’s a very much a different store than big box store, but different than Home Depot. I’ll talk about Home Depot first. Home Depot, currently source about half of the items they sell already here from the United States, but still a lot, a lot they’re sourcing from overseas. So again,
You ask the question, how is it? How is it that Home Depot is not going to be, you’re not going to raise, they say they’re not going to raise prices because tariffs and Walmart and Target are. Can Walmart and Target are a little bit more similar? You don’t think that Home Depot is going to actually really eat these costs and take a hit to their bottom line, a massive hit to their bottom line because they’re not. They’re not.
What Home Depot is going to do is they’re going to find cuts elsewhere. We talked about this here on the program. They’re gonna cut their advertising budget. They’re going to cut workers’ hours. They are going to do what is necessary, what is necessary to keep their numbers working. So it makes sense. Again, the CEO of Home Depot has a fiduciary duty to…
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shareholders, he can’t just say, okay, we’re going to take a massive hit on that numbers, the stock would tank. They’ll find the cuts elsewhere. Again, I tried to explain this yesterday, quite frankly, on the podcast and some of the things that I’m hearing from young people that have recently graduated from college and jobs in New York and these various different things from advertising to PR, people I know at Google and various different places and how companies
are handling this. Now, what is that going to do? That’s going to put people out of work.
That’s going to put people out of work. It’s going to hurt the bottom line of other companies that’s out there. These businesses, they don’t live in a vacuum. Something happens and a massive cost or government intervention gets involved in the free market. Think about you’re throwing a massive rock or cinder block into a pond and you watch it ripple.
Across upon it. That’s what happens. It ripples across the economy again Home depot home depot a little different little different type of a business without a doubt then Target and Walmart, which are you know clothing slash grocery stores a Myriad other things their margins are different And also as well they have to you know, they to also bring people into their store for
back to school and trying to attract them to buy certain things. I don’t know about you, I’m not a hardware store loyalist. I have a small family run hardware store, Ace, up the street. Doesn’t have everything that I need. Whatever’s closer, I’ll go into Home Depot, I’ll go into Lowe’s, doesn’t make any difference to me. Target and Walmart, people kinda like
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You know, they have one or the other for the most part, and they pick that their prices are going to be going up. So I try to avoid the, you know, the arguments that that are being made out there. But again, people that, quite frankly, they don’t understand how the world works properly and trying to pitch an old home depot or a Lowe’s with a target and a Wal-Mart. But like I said, like I said,
You know, it reminds me. Remember that the branch manager in Wall Street, movie Wall Street, know, Bud Fox, Bud Fox sold some options to a client. The client had, well, it was back then, it was a five day settlement, if I’m not mistaken. You know, had to send his check in, the options went down. Remember he said the options took a bath and he didn’t send his money in.
And what happens is that, you know, they sell out the account and the broker in that case, Bud Fox and the movie Wall Street had to pay. Now, what did the branch manager say? He somebody’s got to pay. Ain’t going to be me.
That’s what CEOs are doing right now. Somebody’s gotta pay, ain’t gonna be me. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.