Deckers Outdoor opened 20% up on Friday: what happened?

Deckers Outdoor Corp (NYSE: DECK) opened 20% up in the stock market on Friday after the shoe stores company reported strong results for its fiscal fourth quarter.

Deckers Outdoor Q4 financial highlights

• Net income more than doubled in fiscal fourth quarter to $68.8 million.
• EPS of $2.51 was much better than $1.18 in Q4 of the previous year.
• Net sales jumped 31% to $736 million, as per the earnings press release.
• FactSet consensus was for $1.30 of EPS on $639.5 million in net sales.
• A 24.7% sales growth at Ugg boots was also better-than-anticipated.
• Gross margin declined from 53.2% to 48.7% in the recent fiscal quarter.

Deckers Outdoor leadership change

In related news, Deckers said Wendy Yang will quit as President of Performance Lifestyle at the end of May. The current president of omni-channel, Stefano Caroti, will assume her role temporarily as the company looks for a permanent replacement.

The stock is still down more than 25% for the year.

Deckers Outdoor outlook for the future

For fiscal 2023, Deckers forecasts its net sales to fall between $3.45 billion and $3.50 billion on up to $18.25 of per-share earnings. In comparison, analysts had called for $3.45 billion in net sales on $18.07 of EPS. In the earnings press release, CEO Dave Powers said: