Yahoo Finance PriceSmart's (PSMT) Sales Rise in December, Comps Improve
Subscription warehouse club PriceSmart, Inc. PSMT posted almost a 3% rise in sales in Dec 2016.
PriceSmart reported $328.2 million in net sales in the month, reflecting an increase of 2.9% from $319.1 million a year ago. The company also registered growth in its comparable warehouse sales for the four weeks ended Jan 1, 2017. Comparable warehouse sales increased 3.1% compared to the same four-week period last year.
The company owns and operates U.S.-style membership shopping warehouse clubs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Recently, PriceSmart reported solid growth in first-quarter fiscal 2017 results as currency devaluation issues straightened out in its biggest market.
The company reported earnings of 82 cents a share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 78 cents by 5.13%. The company’s top line also surpassed the mark by 0.4% and increased 3.9% to $739.6 million on a year-over-year basis with one store addition and 39 warehouses in operation as of Nov 30, 2016.
Moreover, comparable-store sales were flat. This marks an improvement over the last two quarters that witnessed a 1% comp decline. Even membership income grew 2.1% year over year, higher than the prior-quarter figure.
Management stated that the business benefited from an improving currency picture in Colombia. The exchange rate between the Colombian peso and the U.S. dollar has somewhat stabilized. With this, the company expects an improvement in the overall sales scenario across its warehouse clubs in the country.
However, although exchange rates have stabilized somewhat, it is still impacting the business significantly. Shares of PriceSmart have suffered in the last three months, losing 0.8%. The stock underperformed the Zacks categorized Retail-Discount & Variety industry which saw a growth of 4.8% over the same period.
Zacks Rank & Key Picks
PriceSmart currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Better-ranked stocks in the same space include Big Lots, Inc. BIG, Dollar Tree, Inc. DLTR and Ross Stores, Inc. ROST, all carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Big Lots’ 3-5 year expected EPS growth rate is pegged at 13.5% and 21.1% for the current year.
Dollar Tree is expected to report 61.6% EPS increase for the current year.
Ross Stores has posted positive earnings surprise in all of the last four quarters, with an average surprise of 4.95%.
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Dollar Tree, Inc. (DLTR): Free Stock Analysis Report
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PriceSmart, Inc. (PSMT): Free Stock Analysis Report
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