Walmart posted its worst U.S. same-store sales growth in more than six years, raising questions about the health of the American consumer, even as the company raised its outlook for the full fiscal year.

• 🗣️ "Given the significant role Walmart plays in the lives of many Americans, the deterioration will set some alarm bells ringing over whether the consumer is running out of steam," according to GlobalData retail analyst Neil Saunders.

By the numbers: The retail giant recorded U.S. comparable sales growth of 2.6% in the second quarter when excluding fuel, trailing Wall Street's expectation of about 3.5%, according to TD Cowen analysts.

• Overall revenue increased 5.9%, to $187.9 billion, compared with a year earlier.

⚠️ State of play: Walmart raised its fiscal year net sales outlook from a range of 3.5%–4.5% to a range of 4%–5%, but investors were expecting a bigger boost, according to Goldman Sachs analyst Kate McShane.

• Walmart CFO John David Rainey said the "modest" guidance bump partly reflects what he called "arguably a softer consumer environment than in February when we introduced our initial outlook."
• He noted that higher fuel prices put added pressure on consumers, saying Walmart has seen shoppers make trade-offs as fuel prices rose.

💸 Follow the money: That pressure on consumers, Rainey said, is why the company is continuing to focus on price reductions.

• Walmart said it is reinvesting tariff refunds in prices, which might've irked investors who were hoping they would bolster margins.

📉 The impact: Walmart shares plunged 9.2%.

Go deeper

Deere shares jumped today after the company reported a surge in demand for construction equipment, overcoming an ongoing slump in the farming economy.

🤖 The big picture: The AI data center boom is igniting sales of construction equipment for the likes of Deere and Caterpillar, as developers snap up bulldozers, excavators, loaders and other machines.

🚧 Zoom in: Sales last quarter jumped 18% in Deere's construction and forestry segment from a year earlier to $3.62 billion.

• Operating profit in the segment also soared 84%, while operating margin spiked from 7.7% to 12.1%.
• 🚜 That helped offset the 6% decline in sales in Deere's production and precision agriculture division, which fell to $4 billion.

What they're saying: "Large-scale infrastructure projects, data center construction and pipeline activity continue to support robust customer demand," investor relations director Christopher Seibert said on an earnings call.

What's next: Customer backlogs reach "well into" the next fiscal year in the construction division, Seibert added.

• The company also said it believes 2026 marks the bottom of the cycle for the agricultural sector.

📈 The impact: Deere shares closed up 6.9%.

💰 Anthropic expects to match or beat the size of SpaceX's record $75 billion IPO. It could make its public filing by the end of this month. (Bloomberg)

🚙 Hyundai is considering increasing U.S. production at its new Georgia plant, part of the Korean automaker's plan to invest $26 billion in the country through 2028. (CNBC)

Astromech, an AI-driven biology startup spun out of Colossal Biosciences, has nearly doubled its valuation in four months, Axios Pro's Lucinda Shen writes.

🧬 Catch up quick: Colossal, a de-extinction company best known for trying to bring back the woolly mammoth, relies on DNA sequencing and gene editing.

• Astromech is building models meant to predict evolutionary shifts, disease risks and biological weak points before they emerge.
• Both companies are helmed by CEO Ben Lamm.

💵 Driving the news: Astromech raised $20 million in funding, valuing it at $3.8 billion.

• That's up from the $2 billion valuation announced four months ago.

🔬 Zoom in: Lamm is betting that his companies' wealth of historical genetic data — combined with environmental information — could help predict what pathogens become resistant to drugs or foresee the jump of a disease from animals to humans.

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