Nordstrom's Stock Rallies After Earnings, Same-store Sales Beat

Nordstrom Inc.'s stock rallied 2.2% in after-hours trade Thursday, after the high-end department store chain's better-than-expected fiscal third-quarter profit and same-store sales offset a lowered earnings outlook. For the quarter ended Nov. 1, earnings rose to $142 million, or 73 cents a share, from $137 million, or 69 cents a share, in the year-earlier period, topping the FactSet consensus analyst estimate of 72 cents. Revenue rose 8.9% to $3.04 billion, just shy of analyst forecasts of $3.11 billion, but total company same-store sales growth of 3.9% exceeded forecasts of 3.3%. Nordstrom revised its full-year sales growth outlook to "approximately 7.5%" from a previous range of 6.5% to 7.5%, but cuts its earnings-per-share outlook to a range of $3.70 to $3.75 from $3.80 to $3.90. The stock had run up 19% year to date through Thursday, better than the 3.4% rise in the SPDR S&P Retail exchange traded fund and the 10% gain in the S&P 500.