NEW YORK — Nordstrom’s holiday shopping season malaise carried over into the first months of the year.
The upscale department store chain reported fiscal first-quarter profit Tuesday that missed Wall Street analysts’ expectations. It also cut its annual sales forecast and its stock tumbled.
“While we expected softer trends from the fourth quarter to continue into the first quarter, we experienced a further deceleration,” said Erik Nordstrom, Nordstrom Inc. co-president, said in a statement.
The company reported net income of $37 million, or 23 cents a share. The average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 43 cents per share.
Seattle-based Nordstrom posted revenue of $3.44 billion in the period, down more than 3 percent from $3.47 billion in the year-ago period. Six analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $3.54 billion.
Online sales increased 7 percent and accounted for 31 percent of Nordstrom’s total sales.
Nordstrom said it now expects full-year earnings to be $3.25 to $3.65 per share, down from a previous forecast of $3.65 to $3.90 a share. Analysts were expecting $3.72 per share for the year.
The company now expects total net sales for the current year to be anywhere from a 2 percent decrease to unchanged. That compares with the original forecast of a 1 to 2 percent increase.
Nordstrom’s shares tumbled more than 9 percent to $34.40 in after-market trading after the release of the earnings report.
