Lumber Liquidators' stock fell 21.5 percent last week Thursday, the day after it shared disappointing second-quarter results.
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Lumber Liquidators' stock fell 21.5 percent last week Thursday, the day after it shared disappointing second-quarter results.
The company will release its full second-quarter report July 30, but gross margin is expected to decline. Earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $0.59-$0.61, well below analysts' forecasts of $0.90 per share on average, according to financial website The Motley Fool.
Sales during the second quarter of 2014 were $263.1 million. While this was a 2.3 percent increase compared with the same quarter in 2013, it was below analysts' estimates of $303.2 million. Comparable-store net sales fell 7.1 percent.
"Customer traffic to our stores was significantly weaker than we expected, particularly in geographic areas severely impacted by the unusually harsh weather in the first quarter," said Robert Lynch, the company's president and CEO, in a statement. "The improvement in customer demand we experienced beginning in mid-March did not carry into May, and June weakened further."
Lumber Liquidators also revised its outlook for the full year 2014. It expects net sales to be in the range $1.05 billion-$1.10 billion; down from the prior company forecast of $1.15 billion-$1.2 billion.
Lynch said while he believes the country is early in a multi-year housing recovery that will boost home improvement spending, he expects the factors that slowed down the company's second-quarter results to continue into the second half of 2014.
"While we believe the third quarter may be weaker than we originally anticipated, we have a strong sense of urgency and we expect to regain traction to deliver operating margin expansion in the second half and in coming years," he said.
As of the time of this article being published, the stock was priced at $55.14, compared with $70.42 before it crashed last week.