Wal-Mart stock falls after leaked internal memo
An employee in a food aisle of Wal-Mart’s Chicago store.
Wal-Mart stock plunged Friday after Bloomberg quoted an internal memo from a company vice president that called their early February sales "a total disaster."
"In case you haven't seen a sales report these days, February MTD sales are a total disaster," Jerry Murray, Wal-Mart's vice president of finance and logistics, said in a e-mail, according to Bloomberg. "The worst start to a month I have seen in my ~7 years with the company."
Shares in the world's biggest retailer fell 2.1 percent, the stock's largest decline since December.
USA Today reported Wal-Mart responded, "As with any organization, we often see internal communications that are not entirely accurate, that lack the proper context and represent individual opinions."
Later this month, the company is due to report its fourth-quarter earnings, USA Today said.
Bloomberg reported Wal-Mart executives blamed the poor sales on the country's still high unemployment and the fact customers are paying higher payroll taxes, which is eating into the paychecks.
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