Best Buy Sales Not So Best; Stock Tumbles

Best Buy(BBY) may have surpassed Wall Street's earnings expectations in the first-quarter, but sales at home are not looking so hot.

Shares of the company tumbled 4% to $37 in pre-market trading, after the electronic retailer said profit slipped 14.5%.

Profit during the quarter fell to $153 million, or 36 cents a share, from $179 million, or 43 cents, in the year-earlier period. Excluding restructuring charges, earnings were 42 cents a share, topping analysts forecast of 34 cents.

Revenue rose 12% to $10.1 billion, boosted by the inclusion of revenue from the European division and the addition of 185 new stores over the past year.

But same-store sales declined 6.2%, with domestic comparable sales seeing its biggest declines in May.

"The comp was below Street expectations and this is likely to be the bigger issue as the company saw no acceleration from fourth quarter when most other retailers saw at least marginal improvement from the abysmal holiday season," Christopher Horvers, analyst at J.P. Morgan wrote in a note on Tuesday.

Best Buy previously forecast same-store sales higher in the first half of the year than the second; guess they were wrong.

The company reaffirmed its full-year forecast in the range of $2.50 to $2.90 a share.

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