Nordstrom shares soared 35% after-hours: here’s the catalyst

Shares of Nordstrom Inc (NYSE: JWN) are up 35% in the extended trading after the luxury department store chain reported Q4 results that handily beat Street expectations and offered upbeat future guidance despite the ongoing supply constraints.

Q4 highlights

• Quarterly profit came in at $200 million that translates to $1.23 a share.
• Nordstrom had posted $33 million in profit or 21 cents a share a year-ago.
• At $4.49 billion, total revenue jumped 23% YoY, as per the earnings press release.
• FactSet consensus was for $1.01 of EPS on $4.36 billion in revenue.
• Digital made up 44% of total quarterly revenue and was down 1.0% year-over-year.
• Gross merchandise value noted an annualised increase of 24%.

Chief executive's remarks

According to Nordstrom, its of-late underperforming business, Rack, also showed signs of improvement in the recent quarter. In the earnings press release, CEO Erik Nordstrom said:

Future guidance

For fiscal 2022, Nordstrom forecasts a 5.0% to 7.0% annualised growth in total revenue on up to $3.50 of per-share earnings, adjusted for share buybacks. In comparisons, experts had forecast 3.7% YoY increase in total revenue on $2.01 of EPS. President Pete Nordstrom noted:

Including the after-hours price action, the stock is now up more than 10% for the year.