Walmart delivered another year of strong sales and profits with its competitive prices an increasingly strong magnet for inflation-weary shoppers, but this year appears to come with new challenges. The outlook from the nation's largest retailer for 2025 is as much as 27 cents below analyst projections for per-share earnings and for the quarter,

Walmart delivered another year of strong sales and profits as its competitive prices became a strong magnet for inflation-weary shoppers. Yet, uncertainty about the state of the American consumer and the potential impact of tariffs have seeped into expectations for 2025.

The world's largest retailer expects low-to-mid single digit revenue gains for the first quarter and for all of 2025.

The retailer serves as a barometer for consumer spending due to its scale and commanding market share of the U.S. retail industry.

A sharp slide for Walmart on Thursday helped pull Wall Street off of its record. The Standard & Poor's 500 slipped 0.4% for its first drop after setting all-time highs in each of the last two days. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 1%,