Six Retail Earnings in Three Days: Every Reaction Measured From the Print

Between 18 August 2026 and 20 August 2026, six large US retailers reported earnings. 5 of the six beat the consensus estimate on the first headline. Measured from the instant each first headline crossed the tape, the fifteen-minute verdicts still ran from -19.98% (Advance Auto Parts) to 4.09% (Ross Stores) — a spread of 24.07 points across one sector in three days.

A beat was no protection. Walmart beat on adjusted EPS and fell 7.45% in the first fifteen minutes anyway, closing that session -9.15%. The one clear miss of the group, Advance Auto Parts, was the hardest hit: -19.98% in the window, -24.55% by the close.

Six prints, measured the same way

Target is the caution against trusting any first read. Measured from its print, the stock faded 1.00% in the first fifteen minutes; it closed that session up 4.28%. Home Depot drifted the other way, from 0.57% in the window to -0.12% at the close. The four names whose window moves were material all kept their sign through the close; the only two reversals of the week came on the two smallest first reads.

The dispersion is the finding. These six chains share a sector, a season and a wire format, and the tape still treated each print on its own terms: the best measured reaction of the week printed the same day as the report that cost its company a quarter of its market value. Sector labels carried very little of the information; the specific print carried nearly all of it.

How these numbers were measured

Every reaction figure on this page is MoveSurge's own measurement: the price captured at the instant each headline crossed our tape, then one and fifteen minutes later, with traded volume compared against the same window's norm for that name. None of it is quoted from another outlet's account of the move. The pipeline that takes these measurements is described on our editorial standards page.