Nordstrom Conference Call Highlights

Nordstrom JWN reported its second quarter earnings on Friday. Shares of the company are down five percent.

Below are some key highlights from its conference call:

International Expansion:

• We have three full-line stores coming, including a second store in Houston, one in Jacksonville, Florida, and we're particularly excited about our first store Canada, in Calgary.
• And finally, our Rack continues to grow at a good clip. We've opened 11 stores so far year-to-date and, for this fall, we have 16 more stores planned to open.

Results:

• This quarter demonstrated our continued focus on the execution of our current business while looking forward in building our capabilities for the future.
• Our second quarter performance was in line with our expectations. Earnings per diluted share of $0.95 increased 2.2 percent over last year.
• Sales trends were generally consistent with the first quarter. We achieved total sales growth of 6.2 percent.
• Comparable sales in our full-price business increased 2.7 percent. The Rack continues to deliver accelerated sales growth of 18 percent with comparable sales increasing 4 percent.
• Based on preliminary numbers, we estimate the dilutive EPS impact to be 3 percent to 5 percent in the current year.

Guidance:

• We remain on track and have narrowed our full-year earnings per diluted share outlook to a range of $3.80 to $3.90.
• This incorporates our second quarter results as well as the full-year impact of share repurchases to-date, but excludes the acquisition of Trunk Club which is expected to reduce earnings per share by 3 percent to 5 percent.
• Our top line expectations reflect total sales growth of 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent and a comparable sales increase of 3 percent to 4 percent.