Two Apparel Retailers Gain On Preliminary Results; Gap Inc. Drops

Two apparel retailers gained sharply in Monday's extended session on better-than-expected preliminary fourth-quarter results. Aeropostale Inc.

jumped more than 17 percent to $3.10, while Urban Outfitters Inc.

picked up more than 7 percent recently. Gap Inc.

also beat fourth-quarter expectations but posted disappointing sales for January. Gap traded down recently by $0.30 cents to $40.80. Aeropostale estimated its fourth-quarter loss at between $0.06 cents to $0.01 cent a share, on sales of $594.5 million. Wall Street expects a loss of $0.27 cents a share, on sales of $577.7 million when Aeropostale posts full results on March 12. Urban Outfitters said fourth-quarter sales grew 12 percent to $1.01 billion; Wall Street expected sales of $998.1 million. Same-store sales grew 4 percent at Urban Outfitters' namesake chain and by 18 percent at Free People, and 6 at the Anthropologie Group. Urban Outfitters is slated to post full results March 9. Gap Inc. estimated its fourth-quarter adjusted earnings will be between $0.73 cents and $0.74 cents a share, while sales grew 3 percent to $4.71 billion. Wall Street analysts expected $0.68 cents a share, on sales of $4.71 billion. Gap is slated to post full results Feb. 26. But Gap said January same-store sales fell 3 percent from a year earlier and total sales declined more than 1 percent to $888 million.