Lumber Liquidators Crashes After Same
The economy may be improving, but the home improvement game can't get off the floor.
Lumber Liquidators , the largest specialty retailer of hardwood flooring in North America, has disappointing results and forecasts on Wednesday. Net sales increased only 2.3% from the second quarter of 2013 as the company opened 13 new stores. Meanwhile, same store sales actually fell 7.1%.
Lumber Liquidators, which operates 344 stores, also missed on earnings, posting only about $0.60 per share while analysts expected $0.90. It reduced its outlook to a range of $2.65 to $3 per share, from up to $3.60 before.
CEO Robert Lynch blamed 'unusually harsh weather' for customer traffic to stores being 'significantly weaker' than expected.
'The improvement in customer demand we experienced beginning in mid-March did not carry into May, and June weakened further,' he said in a statement. 'Our reduced customer traffic has coincided with certain weak macroeconomic trends related to residential remodeling, including existing home sales, which have generally been lower in 2014 than the corresponding periods in 2013. We now believe the prolonged purchase cycle associated with our customers' discretionary, large-ticket home improvement projects is likely to be delayed for some customers into the fall flooring season, and for others, into spring of 2015.'
Lumber Liquidators shares crashed 22% in Thursday morning trading. They're now down nearly 47% in 2014.
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