First-Quarter Retail Earnings Downright Awful So Far

The unusually cold and wintry weather in February and March gets a good deal of the blame. But intense price competition and less discretionary income for lower- and middle-income consumers contributed to the slide as well.

For the 87 chains that have reported results so far, earnings are down 4.5%, or 4% excluding giant retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT). Retail Metrics had forecast a total decline to 1.1%. Retailers’ revenues are up 3.1% on a reported basis and are projected to rise 3.2% on a blended basis.

Department stores are the worst performing subgroup. Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) posted an earnings per share loss of $2.24, far worse than expected, and there is little reason to believe the company will ever turn around. According to Retail Metrics, the department store group’s first-quarter earnings are down 252%.

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Another poorly performing group is the teen retailers, down 118%. That is not good, but it is better than expected, primarily due to the not-as-awful-as-expected results from Aeropostale Inc. (NYSE: ARO). The company’s results were bad enough to drum 25% of the value out of the stock, but that was better than analysts thought it would be.

There are 15 retailers scheduled to release earnings next week, including Michael Kors Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: KORS), which reports results on Wednesday. Retail Metrics expects it to post EPS of $0.68 on revenues of $816.51 million. Same-store sales are projected to rise 20.1%.

Big Lots Inc. (NYSE: BIG) reports results next Friday, and Retail Metrics is looking for EPS of $0.44 on revenues of $1.27 billion. Same-store sales at the discounter are expected to decline by 0.3%.

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