Big-Box Giants’ Sales Miss Spurs Concerns About the Consumer

Through the ups and downs of the choppy U.S. economic expansion, the consumer has been perhaps the lone consistent driver of growth, spending money at a steadily rising clip.

And there have as yet been no real signs in the broad data of that changing, with unemployment, housing and gas prices remaining supportive. But back-to-back lackluster results from retail-industry bellwethers -- Walmart Inc. and Target Corp. -- are suddenly raising the possibility of a softening in consumer spending. Or, at the very least, they are sparking some economy watchers to start asking questions.