What Happened?
Shares of young adult apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE:ANF) fell 19.9% in the morning session after the company reported underwhelming sales and earnings forecasts, falling short of high expectations for retail stocks fueled by strong demand ahead of the holiday shopping season. ANF bumped its sales growth outlook for Q4 2024 to a range of 7-8% from a prior range of 5-7%. However, this modest increase lags far behind the robust double-digit growth the company achieved in the same quarter of 2023. Overall, the results were disappointing. However, Abercrombie & Fitch wasn't the only one to report weak holiday demand, as Five Below and Macy's also didn't see the success that the market expected.
The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks. Is now the time to buy Abercrombie and Fitch? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
What The Market Is Telling Us
Abercrombie and Fitch’s shares are very volatile and have had 27 moves greater than 5% over the last year. But moves this big are rare even for Abercrombie and Fitch and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 8 months ago when the stock gained 27% on the news that the company reported a "beat and raise" quarter. First quarter results blew past analysts' revenue and EPS expectations, driven by its insanely high 21% year-on-year same-store sales growth (vs analysts' estimates of 12%). The sales performance was broad-based with Abercrombie brands up 31% while Hollister brands delivered growth of 12%. On the back of the strong print, the company raised its full-year revenue guidance from 5% growth at the midpoint to 10%, a massive jump. Zooming out, we think this was a fantastic quarter that shareholders will appreciate.
Abercrombie and Fitch is down 13.8% since the beginning of the year, and at $132 per share, it is trading 31.4% below its 52-week high of $192.34 from June 2024. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Abercrombie and Fitch’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $7,339.
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