Customers shop at a Walmart store in Los Angeles County, California, the United States, May 20, 2025. Photo: Xinhua

US stocks slid on Thursday morning local time, after fresh data showed that the country's weekly jobless claims rose to the highest since June, and retail giant Walmart reported lower-than-expected earnings, with an executive warning continuously rising "tariff-impacted costs," according to US media reports.

As of 10:37 am on Thursday local time, the S&P 500 fell for a fifth day in a row, down 0.2 percent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 106 points lower, or 0.2 percent, CNBC reported. 

Notably, Walmart shares plunged more than 4 percent after the retailer beat Wall Street's quarterly sales estimates but missed earnings expectations, the first time it missed on quarterly earnings since May 2022, according to CNBC. 

According to the report, the company's adjusted earnings per share of 68 cents in the second quarter fell short of analyst expectations of 74 cents.

In an interview with CNBC, Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said that the company is working hard to keep prices low. "This is managed on an item-by-item and category-by-category basis," he said. "There are certainly areas where we have fully absorbed the impact of higher tariff costs. There are other areas where we've had to pass some of those costs along," according to CNBC.

But he added "tariff-impacted costs are continuing to drift upwards," CNBC reported.

Walmart had warned it would increase prices this summer to offset tariff-related costs on certain goods imported to the US. Consumer-level inflation is increasing modestly, and wholesale inflation spiked in July to its fastest rate in more than three years, according to Reuters.

A day earlier, another US retail giant, Target, warned of tariff-induced cost pressures, even as it reiterated that price increases would be considered only as a last resort, Reuters reported. 

Meanwhile, latest official data showed on Thursday that applications for US unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level since June and continuing claims climbed, adding to evidence the US labor market is slowing, according to Bloomberg.

Initial claims increased by 11,000 to 235,000 in the week ended August 16. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 225,000 applications, said the report.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, rose to 1.97 million in the week ended August 9, the highest since November 2021, Bloomberg reported.

Global Times