When someone asks me a question like that, my first instinct isn’t to give an opinion.
It’s to pull up a chart.
Because one of the foundational principles of technical analysis is simple.
Price stores the collective wisdom of the market.
Every analyst, every consumer, every fund manager with an opinion is already voting through their buying and selling.
All of that gets distilled into price.
No noise. No ego. No debating who “should” win.
And when you pull up the $WMT vs $TGT relative chart… well, it speaks louder than I ever could.
Walmart has been outpacing Target for years.
Not quietly either.
This is a steady, persistent trend that didn’t need a single earnings call transcript to confirm.
Could fundamentals explain it? Of course!
Following technicals isn’t a contradiction to fundamentals.
Price is simply the fastest and cleanest way to distill them.
Operators matter. Business quality matters.
Technical analysis just acknowledges that all of that information — the good, the bad, the expectations, the surprises — gets expressed through price long before the debate about it ends.
So if you’re ever stuck comparing two names, don’t overthink it.
