At Home Group Shares Soar 9% On Better-than-expected Earnings

Shares of retailer At Home Group Inc. soared 9% Wednesday, after the company posted better-than-expected earnings for its fiscal first quarter and offered an upbeat outlook for the rest of the year. Plano, Texas-based At Home operates home decor superstores and went public in August of 2016. The company said it had net income of $10 million, or 16 cents a share, in the quarter, up from $7.3 million, or 14 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Adjusted per-share earnings came to 19 cents, a penny ahead of the FactSet consensus. Sales rose to $211.8 million from $172.1 million a year ago, also ahead of the FactSet consensus of $208.7 million. Same-store sales rose 5.8% to beat the FactSet consensus of 3.8%. "It is still early in the year, but we feel very good about our first quarter performance and are raising our top line expectations and the midpoint of our fiscal 2018 EPS outlook," Chief Executive Lee Bird said in a statement. The company is now expecting fiscal 2018 sales of $906 million to $913 million, and adjusted EPS of 73 cents to 75 cents. Shares have gained 38% in 2017, while the S&P 500 has gained 8%.