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Retail

Hot Topic: Twilight Can’t Help Forever (HOTT)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Hot Topic, Inc. (NASDAQ: HOTT) is continuing to lose its momentum.  The company had been a huge winner for being tied to the  apparel from the Twilight teen vampire movie.  But apparently vampire envy in apparel can get a stake through the heart too.  The company’s same store sales are shrinking again, and now we have an earnings warning.

For the month of June, total company same store sales were -7.9%, worse than the -0.3% reported a year ago. Its Hot Topic specific same store sales were -7.2%, also down from -0.2% a year ago.  Its Torrid brand store same store sales were -10.3%, down from -0.8% a year ago.  Even the total sales were down by -5.8% at the total company.

On a quarter-to-date same store sales basis, the Hot Topic brand has seen a -6.8% and the Torrid brand has seen -8.7% on a same store sales basis.

As a result of the lower-than-expected sales so far in the quarter, the company now expects that earnings will be back at a loss in a range of -$0.07 to -$0.09 EPS.  Analysts were already expecting a loss, but only -$0.05 according to Thomson Reuters.  This reflects an anticipated comparable store sales drop down in the high single-digit range for the quarter.

Shares closed up over 2% at $7.04, but they are now down around $6.70 in after-hours trading.

Jon C. Ogg

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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