Abercrombie Soars 30% After Q3 Results

Shares of apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch

have soared on Wednesday after the company released its third-quarter earnings results and raised its full-year view. In late day trading, the stock was up around 30 percent to $40.51. The company's results for the third-quarter topped analysts' consensus estimates as sales growth and strong international performance drove performance in the period. "These significantly improved financial results reflect progress on several fronts over the past quarter. Our US chain store business posted healthy growth on top of a strong quarter a year ago, and we saw sequential trend improvement in our international business," Chairman and CEO Mike Jeffries said in a statement. Looking ahead to fiscal 2012, Abercrombie raised its adjusted earnings guidance to a range of $2.85 to $3.00 per share. This is well above its previous guidance range of $2.50 to $2.75. Currently, analysts are projecting that the company will report full-year EPS of $2.48. For the third-quarter, the company reported net income of $71.51 million or $0.87 per share, versus $50.91 million or $0.57 per share, in the year ago period. This easily beat Wall Street consensus earnings estimates of $0.59 per share. Sales rose 9 percent to $1.17 billion from $1.08 billion a year ago. This also exceeded Wall Street consensus estimates of $1.11 billion. Comparable store sales fell 3 percent in the quarter, but margins rose. Operating margin was up 220 basis points to 9.6 percent and gross margin rose 240 basis points in the period.