Buckle's (BKE) Stock Falls Despite Upbeat Sales for June

Shares of The Buckle, Inc. BKE lost 4.7% during the trading session on Jun 9 despite robust sales numbers in the same month. However, total sales for the fiscal period have declined year over year, which might have weighed on investors’ sentiments. This can be attributed to the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak that forced retailers to shut stores and witness consequent loss in sales.

Likewise, Buckle temporarily shut all its brick and mortar stores effective Mar 18, 2020. Notably, this casual apparel, footwear and accessories retailer initiated the process of reopening outlets during the week of Apr 26, 2020. As of Jul 4, Buckle reopened about 438 outlets. Currently, the company operates 446 retail stores across 42 states. This also includes the opening of two youth outlets in Idaho Falls, ID and Victoria, TX. Meanwhile, the company’s online store has remained open throughout.

Coming to sales data, Buckle’s total net sales for the five-week fiscal month ended Jul 4, 2020 grew 26.8% to $94.8 million from net sales of $74.8 million reported in the five-week fiscal month ended Jul 6, 2019. Moreover, the company broke its three-month trend of decline in sales. We note that the company had witnessed sales decline of 16.8%, 80.8% and 50.2% respectively in the preceding three months. The metric had improved 6% and 3.2% in February and January respectively.

Further, net sales for the 22-week fiscal period ended Jul 4, 2020 plunged 22.6% to $261.4 million compared with net sales of $337.6 million recorded in the 22-week fiscal period ended Jul 6, 2019. Due to store closures, management has decided to report total net sales only every month. It will not issue any separate data on comparable store sales for now. Management continues to evaluate the proper time to resume reporting of its regular monthly sales data based on resumption of normal business functions.

The glimpse of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock’s performance shows that its shares have gained 8.7% compared with the Zacks Retail - Apparel And Shoes industry’s rally of 18.1% in the past three months.

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Big Lots BIG, also a Zacks Rank #1 stock, has an expected long-term earnings growth rate of 7.1%.

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