Target reported second-quarter GAAP and Adjusted earnings per share of $4.11 for fiscal 2026, up from $2.05 a year earlier [1][2]. That is a 100 percent gain, which the company states plainly in its release [2], and which a run of headlines translated into earnings that doubled. The doubling is arithmetically real. Its cause is mostly a single line item.
Target recognized $994 million of pretax tariff refund benefits during the quarter. Those benefits contributed $752 million to net earnings and $1.65 to both GAAP and Adjusted EPS [2]. Remove that $1.65 and per-share earnings were about $2.46, which the company frames as a 20 percent year-over-year increase excluding tariff refunds [1][2]. The arithmetic checks: $2.05 grown by 20 percent is $2.46, and $2.46 plus the $1.65 refund is $4.11.
The quarter was not hollow underneath the refund. Net sales grew 5.3 percent to $26.5 billion, and comparable sales rose 3.8 percent [1][2]. Chief Executive Michael Fiddelke said the results "build on the encouraging momentum we saw in the first quarter, giving us increasing confidence that our strategy is resonating with our guests and strengthening our leadership position in style, design, and value" [2]. A 3.8 percent comparable-sales gain is a real operating improvement, and the steel-man version of the bullish read is that Target's stores are recovering.
The distinction that the doubling headline erases is durability. A 20 percent operating gain and a 100 percent headline gain describe the same three months, yet only one of them recurs. The tariff refund settles duties Target already paid; it is not a new rate of earnings. Target's own full-year outlook, an adjusted EPS range of $9.90 to $10.90 [2], is a separate figure covering the whole year and should not be set against the single quarter's $4.11. Read the refund as operating growth and next year's comparison starts from a base that never existed.
