Why Best Buy Stock Popped Today


What happened

Shares of Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) were up 15.7% as of 11:20 a.m. EST Wednesday after the electronics retailer announced strong results for its fiscal fourth quarter ended Feb. 2, 2019.

Best Buy’s quarterly revenue declined 3.7% year over year to $14.8 billion, translating to a 12.4% increase in adjusted (non-GAAP) earnings to $2.72 per share. For perspective, note these results were hampered by a combination of store closures and — to a greater extent — an extra week in the same year-ago period that added $760 million in sales and $0.20 per share to adjusted earnings. Excluding that extra week, Best Buy’s comparable-store sales grew 3%, well above the midpoint of guidance provided in November calling for comps to be flat to up 3% and for adjusted earnings in the range of $2.48 to $2.58.

Stock market chart in black and blue indicating gains.


IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

So what

Even more impressive, this 3% comps growth came after a 9% increase in last year’s fiscal fourth quarter. And within Best Buy’s top line, domestic comparable sales grew 3%, while international comparable sales rose 2.5%.

“In addition to these great financial results, we made significant progress implementing our Best Buy 2020 strategy to enrich lives through technology and further develop our competitive differentiation,” stated Best Buy chairman and CEO Hubert Joly. “We launched our Total Tech Support program, expanded our In-Home Advisor program and acquired GreatCall.”


Now what

Best Buy’s board also approved a new $3 billion share repurchase authorization, replacing their existing two-year-old authorization, which had $1.5 billion remaining. Best Buy expects it will exhaust between $750 million and $1 billion of the new authorization this fiscal year.

On that note, for the full fiscal year 2020, Best Buy expects revenue of $42.9 billion to $43.9 billion, assuming comparable sales growth of 0.5% to 2.5%. That should translate to adjusted earnings per share of $5.45 to $5.65. By contrast, and though we don’t usually pay close attention to Wall Street’s demands, most analysts were modeling fiscal-2020 earnings near the low end of that range on revenue right at the midpoint of Best Buy’s guidance.

In the end, given Best Buy’s relative outperformance in the fourth quarter and its better-than-expected profit targets for the coming year, it’s no surprise to see shares rallying in response.

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