The Estee Lauder Companies Down 4.4% on Weak Q3 Guidance

The Estee Lauder Companies

is trading lower on the session following its earnings and guidance announcements this morning. The company reported Q2 EPS of $1.01 vs $1.01 estimate and revenues of $2.74 billion vs $2.75 billion estimate. Estee Lauder guided Q3 EPS $0.28-0.32 vs $0.41 estimate. CEO of The Estee Lauder Companies, Fabrizio Freda said: "The Company's strong second quarter results complete an outstanding first half performance. Our sales and profits this holiday season came in higher than planned and demonstrate the vibrancy of our brand portfolio in solid as well as soft economies. Our results were again broad based across brands, regions, categories and channels. The key drivers of our 10% sales growth were the U.S., China, travel retail and online. Importantly, we continued our consistent gross margin and operating margin improvements." The Estee Lauder Companies is currently trading at $56.28, a loss of $2.57 or 4.37%.