The Buckle, Inc.’s (NYSE:BKE) comparable-store sales (comps) for January decreased 2.2%, following a decline of 0.2% in the preceding month. In November, October, September and August, the company witnessed comps decline of 0.6%, 1%, 2.4% and 0.7%, respectively. This marked the company’s sixth straight month of dismal comps. Net sales were $45.8 million in January, down 17.9% year over year. This follows a decrease of 6.7% in December.
While comps for the 52-week period ended Feb 2 dipped 0.9%, net sales decreased 3.1% to $885.5 million.
Sales at the company’s Men's category, which contributed nearly 50% to sales in January, were up 1% year over year for the four-week period ended Feb 2, 2019. However, Buckle has not been able to revive the performance of the struggling Women’s business. Sales in the Women’s category, which represented 50% of the company’s monthly sales, declined 2.5% year over year during the aforementioned period.
On a combined basis, accessory sales, which constituted nearly 7.5% of the company’s January sales, dropped 4%. However, footwear sales, which accounted for almost 6.5% of net sales, increased 15%.
Currently, this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company operates 450 retail stores across 42 states. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Apart from Buckle, Costco (NASDAQ:COST) , Zumiez (NASDAQ:ZUMZ) and L Brands (NYSE:LB) reported sales results for January. Costco and Zumiez registered comps growth of 5.2% and 3.5%, respectively. However, comps for L Brands declined 1%.
In the past six months, shares of Buckle have lost 30% compared with the industry’s 19.4% decline.
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