Lumber Liquidators Stock Slides 16% After Bigger-than-expected Quarterly Loss

Shares of wood flooring retailer Lumber Liquidators slid 16% Tuesday, after the company posted a far wider-than-expected loss for its first quarter. The company, which is still recovering from a scandal involving carcinogens in wood laminates it imported from China, said it had a first-quarter net loss of $26.4 million, or 93 cents a share, narrower than the loss of $32.4 million, or $1.20 a share, posted a year ago. But Factset analysts were expecting a much narrower per-share loss of 21 cents. The news overshadowed a small revenue beat: the company posted revenue of $248.4 million, up from $233.5 million in the year-earlier period and ahead of the $247.2 million FactSet consensus. First-quarter gross margin was 34.9%, up from 32.6% a year ago. On a call with analysts, Chief Executive Dennis Knowles said the company "made an important triage in 2015 and 2016 to a solid focus on execution in 2017." However, "as it relates to our turnaround journey we have a lot of work to do," he said. Shares have gained 32% in 2017, while the S&P 500 has gained 6.6%.