SEATTLE _ Further spurring a day of retail cheer, Nordstrom reported second quarter earnings that handily beat Wall Street expectations and sent its stock shooting up 11 percent in after-hours trading.
Nordstrom shares were trading at $52.85 Thursday afternoon shortly after the high-end retailer released its earnings report for the quarter that ended July 30.
Nordstrom stock had already jumped more than 7 percent earlier Thursday after Macy's and Kohl's both reported better than expected results earlier in the day. Macy's shares jumped 17 percent Thursday, while Kohl's rose 16 percent.
Nordstrom reported total sales of $3.65 billion, down 1.4 percent from the same quarter a year ago. It reported earnings of 67 cents per share, down 39 percent.
But the earnings beat Wall Street expectations of 55 cents per share, and met expectations of $3.65 billion in sales, according to a Zacks consensus estimate.
"Over the past several quarters, our team has been actively addressing our inventory, expense and capital, and in the second quarter, made substantial progress by bringing down inventory in-line with sales," Blake Nordstrom, co-president, said in a news release. "Those efforts, along with the strength of our Anniversary Sale and a great response from customers to that event, drove better than expected results for the second quarter."
The heartening news came after months of retail gloom at merchants including Nordstrom.
Still, comparable sales figures were less rosy, with overall sales at stores open at least a year decreasing 1.2 percent from a year ago.
At its full-line brick-and-mortar stores, comparable sales declined 6.5 percent.
Its full-line online site fared better, with comparable sales increasing 9.4 percent.
The company's discount stores saw sales increases, with Nordstrom Rack comparable sales up 1.1 percent and Nordstromrack.com/HauteLook up 34.7 percent.
