ITG Sees Worse-Than-Expected Q4 Sales, Comps At Panera

Traders in shares of Panera

are hitting the sell button Tuesday following some concerning comments from market-research firm ITG. Heading into the afternoon session, Panera shares last traded at $167.98, down more than 2 percent from Monday's close. Citing an expected slowdown for high-end consumers, ITG is modeling for Q4 sales around $655 million; a consensus of Wall Street analysts currently sits at $663.7 million. The firm is looking for quarterly systemwide same-store sales to be flat to up 1 percent, below the current Street estimate around 1.5 percent. Panera is set to hit above average volume for Tuesday's session: with about four hours left in intraday trade, nearly 250,000 shares have traded hands, compared to average full-day volume of over 450,000 shares.