What Happened?
Shares of clothing and footwear retailer Boot Barn (NYSE: BOOT) jumped 19.3% in the morning session after the company reported strong fourth-quarter results as its profit margins and EBITDA beat expectations, but its sales and earnings per share came in a bit short. The company's top-line growth, driven by store openings and nearly 10% growth in online sales, helped explain the strength in EBITDA. Looking ahead, the company's guidance suggested sales will keep growing at a steady pace, but mostly from adding stores. However, earnings forecast looked pretty modest, and were below consensus estimates. Still, management noted demand was holding up well, and they felt good about handling trade pressures. So overall, it was a strong quarter, even if the outlook felt a bit cautious.
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What The Market Is Telling Us
Boot Barn’s shares are very volatile and have had 27 moves greater than 5% over the last year. But moves this big are rare even for Boot Barn and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 24 days ago when the stock dropped 5.2% on the news that President Trump criticized the Federal Reserve's approach to interest rate cuts, warning that the pace was slow and could hinder economic growth. Trump's comments added pressure to an already sensitive market, raising concerns about political interference in monetary policy.
Meanwhile, Fed Chair Jerome Powell maintained a cautious stance the previous week, highlighting the difficulty of balancing the dual mandate of steady employment and price stability amid the escalating trade tension. Investor sentiment was further dampened by the absence of constructive progress in trade negotiations, especially US-China relations which took a turn for the worse in the previous week. Overall, the outlook seemed more unclear heading into the first quarter 2025 earnings season, as a combination of hard to predict monetary policy and unresolved trade tensions weighed on business confidence.
Boot Barn is up 2.3% since the beginning of the year, but at $156.13 per share, it is still trading 10.5% below its 52-week high of $174.52 from January 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Boot Barn’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $8,166.
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