Zumiez Soars on September Sales and Guidance

Zumiez, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZUMZ) shares are making a run on Thursday after the company reported its sales results for September 2016. At the same time, the company also upped the stakes when it increased guidance for the fiscal third-quarter.

The company announced that total net sales for the five-week period ended October 1, 2016, increased 11.5% to $75.0 million, compared to $67.3 million for the five-week period ended October 3, 2015. The Company’s comparable sales increased 6.3% for the five-week period compared to a comparable sales decrease of 1.8% in the year ago period.

Based primarily on higher than planned sales quarter-to-date, Zumiez is also raising its guidance and now expects fiscal 2016 third quarter net sales to be in the range of $216 million to $217 million and net income per diluted share of roughly $0.29 to $0.30. This guidance is now predicated on a comparable sales increase of approximately 2% for the third quarter.

The previously issued guidance called for net sales in the range of $209 million to $213 million and net income per diluted share of approximately $0.21 to $0.26.

A few analysts weighed in on Zumiez on Thursday:

• Stifel has a Hold rating with an $18 price target.
• Wedbush has a Neutral rating with an $18 price target.
• William Blair upgraded to an Outperform rating.
• Mizuho has a Neutral rating with a $19 price target.

Excluding Thursday’s move, Zumiez has outperformed the broad markets with the stock up nearly 21% year to date. Over the past 52-weeks the stock is up only 12%.

Shares of Zumiez were last trading up 18% at $21.61, with a consensus analyst price target of $16.27 and a 52-week trading range of $11.53 to $22.14.