Signet Jewelers falls 9% after lowering forecast, macro ‘worsened’ late in quarter says CEO

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Signet Jewelers (NYSE:SIG) shares traded about 9% lower in early Thursday trading after the company cut its full-year forecast for profit and sales.

For its first quarter, the company reported an adjusted EPS of $1.78 on revenue of $1.67 billion, beating the analyst consensus for earnings of $1.44 on sales of $1.65B. Same-store sales dropped 13.9% compared to the year-ago period while total sales declined 9.3%.

“Our Signet team delivered our revenue and bottom-line commitments in Q1 despite macroeconomic headwinds that worsened late in the quarter. In line with our predictions, there were fewer engagements in the quarter resulting from COVID's disruption of dating three years ago," said Signet's chief executive officer Virginia C. Drosos.

For this quarter, the company guided for revenue of $1.53B-1.58B, missing the $1.75B analyst target. The adjusted operating income is expected in the region of $85 million-$100M, significantly below the expected $164.3M.

Given soft FQ2 guidance, Signet cut its full-year outlook.

“Our updated Fiscal 2024 guidance reflects a recent deceleration of trends that have persisted into the second quarter, including a softer than expected Mother's Day, increasing macro-economic pressures on consumers at more price points, and deeper competitive discounting," said Joan Hilson, chief financial, strategy and services officer.

The company now sees FY EPS of $9.79 on revenue of $7.2B. It had previously expected FY EPS of $11.33 on revenue of $7.755B. Analysts were looking for FY EPS of $11.11 on revenue of $7.73B.