New York, May 20, 2026, 04:15 EDT
Chewy Inc. shares dropped Tuesday after CEO Sumit Singh said U.S. shoppers are under more financial strain now than at the start of the year. That’s raising fresh concerns about demand for pet supplies.
Chewy ended the session at $19.66, falling 9.1%. The shares touched a low of $19.46 during the day, Google Finance shows. That puts Chewy near its 52-week low, with the stock lagging behind the consumer discretionary sector.
Chewy is due to report Q1 earnings before the open on June 10. The update follows its comments Tuesday, which raised questions around growth in food, medicine, and subscription sales with spending down. Chewy said Monday its results call will start at 8 a.m. ET.
Chewy is “continuing to see and interpret the consumer as being more stretched than we were when we entered the year,” Singh said at the J.P. Morgan Technology, Media & Communications Conference. He said there’s “no shortage of data points” to back that up. Investing.com UK
Consumers are growing more cautious, with early May figures from the University of Michigan putting U.S. consumer sentiment at an all-time low. Higher gasoline costs dragged sentiment down, Reuters reported last week.
Chewy says pet owners keep spending even when other retail slows down. Its Autoship auto-delivery program brought in 83.3% of net sales in fiscal 2025. The company’s annual report shows active customers up 4% to 21.3 million.
J.P. Morgan’s Douglas Anmuth, at the same event, called Chewy the biggest online-only pet retailer in the U.S. He sees net sales coming in around $13.7 billion this year, with about 85% of that from Autoship customers. Anmuth pointed to management’s EBITDA margin goal of 6.7% at the midpoint. EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Chewy has some cushion from broader economic swings, Singh told Barron’s. “The emotive nature of the category, alongside these durable levers that we bring to market, puts us in a category which is relatively much more inert to some of these macro headwinds,” he said. Barron’s
Pet supply stocks saw mixed action after the news. Petco Health and Wellness fell about 2.9%, while BARK surged 7.5%. Amazon, which also sells pet products, lost 2.1%. The Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ETF declined 1.1%. SPDR S&P 500 ETF was off 0.7%.
Chewy is pushing deeper into pet health, aiming for higher-touch services as product spending stays uncertain. In April, the company announced it will buy Modern Animal, a deal that Chewy said will bring its Vet Care locations from 18 up to 47 and add over $125 million in annualized run-rate revenue. CEO Sumit Singh called Modern Animal a “perfect” fit for Chewy’s push to build a pet health ecosystem. investor.chewy.com
The pet sector’s “defensive” angle runs into problems if buyers start opting for cheaper options, delay purchases, or spend less on services. Food and meds might hold up better than toys or durable goods, but Chewy needs to keep bringing in regular orders, acquiring new customers, and protecting margins. Weak first-quarter results in June would make Tuesday’s decline look more like a reset than a blip.
Citigroup’s Steven Zaccone is sticking with his Buy rating on the stock but trimmed his price target down to $37 from $40 last week. According to Sahm Capital, Zaccone has turned more cautious on retail but still sees upside from where shares finished Tuesday.
