Prior to today’s open MarketWatch provided a reminder that the lemmings are still rampaging in the casino. With respect to Tiffany’s (TIF) pre-market earnings announcement, it telegraphed the reason why TIF soared by 12% or about $1.5 billion during the course of the trading day:
Tiffany & Co.’s stock climbed 3.5% in premarket trade Wednesday, after the luxury jewelry retailer reported better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter profit and sales, and provided an upbeat earnings outlook for the year.
Well, not exactly. Worldwide sales fell by 5% from $1.01 billion in the April quarter last year to $962 million during the current the quarter. Same store sales dropped even more – -by 7%.
Likewise, net income of $105 million represented a 17% plunge from last year’s $126 million. Not surprisingly, however, this was greeted as rip-roaring good news because the street ‘consensus’ had marked down expected earnings to just $91 million or by 27% from last year’s QI level.
As for the ‘upbeat’ earnings guidance, it amounted to this:
For the full fiscal year, Tiffany said it expects ‘minimal growth’ in earnings per share from the $4.20 earned in fiscal 2014….
Apparently, flat is the new ‘upbeat’, but even then TIF didn’t actually earn $4.20 in the year ending in January. That’s the ex-items fiction that they use in the casino. TIF actually earned $3.73 per share last year.
This post was published at David Stockmans Contra Corner by David Stockman ‘ May 27, 2015.
Recent Comments