AP/Paul Sakuma
A Zales jewelry store worker looks at watches in San Bruno, Calif.
- Shares of Signet Jewelers are down more than 25% after the company reported a big loss and warned on 2018.
- Same-store sales fell 5%, worse than the 2.9% drop that Wall Street was anticipating.
Shares of Signet Jewelers are crashing, down 25.24% at $56.70, early Wednesday after the company announced a big loss and warned on its business for 2018.
The jeweler reported a loss of $0.20 a share and said that same-store sales dropped 5% versus a year ago, far worse than the 2.9% drop that Wall Street analysts were expecting. Signet says the quarterly loss includes a $0.25 hit due to net transaction costs related to the first phase of strategic credit outsourcing and the R2Net acquisition, and a $0.10 hit due to weather-related incidents and credit outsourcing disruptions.
On an adjusted basis, the company earned $0.15 a share, topping the $0.13 that was anticipated.
"Signet had a challenging third quarter," CEO Virginia Drosos said in the earnings release. "In addition to an anticipated sequential slowdown in our same store sales, unfavorable weather-related incidents, along with unexpected disruptions during the transition of our credit services, further negatively impacted results."
The bad news for Signet didn't stop there. The company says it sees fiscal 2018 earnings ranging of $6.10 to $6.50 per share, down from its previous estimate of $7.16 to $7.56 a share. It also expects 2018 same-store sales to be down in the mid-single digits, a bit of a downgrade from its prior forecast of down low-to-mid-single digits.
Shares of Signet are down 40.66% this year.
