Retail giant Target has lost $10 billion in market capitalization in ten days, largely due to the backlash over prominent LGBTQ+ PRIDE displays including transgender-friendly clothing items for children.
According to a report published Sunday by The New York Post, Target’s stock price was hovering near $160.96 a share. However, viral videos showing “tuck-friendly” and “binding” bathing suits for trans-identifying kids — along with greeting cards celebrating queerness in a display clearly aimed at young children – led to calls for a boycott. Ten days later, the stock price had dropped to $138.93 per share.
A drop of $22 per share amounts to a 14% decrease in value – which translates to a $10 billion loss for the Minnesota-based company.
As soon as word began to spread across social media platforms about the retailer’s prominent PRIDE displays — which also included LGBTQ+ themed baby clothes — calls quickly began to grow louder for a boycott of the company.
According to earlier reports, Target immediately focused on damage control. Executives participated in an “emergency call” in in effort to avoid what one insider referred to as a “Bud Light situation.”
The insider told Fox News that, at least in some areas across the country, “We were given 36 hours, told to take all of our Pride stuff, the entire section, and move it into a section that’s a third the size. From the front of the store to the back of the store, you can’t have anything on mannequins and no large signage.”
The “Bud Light situation” the insider referenced was the immediate backlash and plummeting sales that followed a short-lived partnership between the Anheuser-Busch signature product and trans-identifying influencer Dylan Mulvaney. In the weeks following Mulvaney’s promotion, Anheuser-Busch has lost billions in market capitalization and at least two marketing executives connected with the partnership have been placed on leave.
By late last week, Investors Business Daily was reporting that Anheuser-Busch had already lost upwards of $17.5 billion — and the company was resorting to offering retailers the chance to sell back expired merchandise that was still sitting on shelves.