Pep Boys Shares Off After Sales Decline

PHILADELPHIA (TheStreet) -- Pep Boys(PBY Quote) continued to cut costs aggressively during its just-ended quarter in a bid to deal with weakening retail sales.

Shares of the car-repair and auto-parts chain fell nearly 6% to $9.50 in premarket trading, giving back much of the gains achieved in Tuesday's regular session, when the stock surged nearly 9% ahead of the company's quarterly earnings release.

Pep Boys managed its bottom line well, however, turning in a profit of $7.7 million, or 15 cents a share, a penny better than analysts' estimates and 42% above the year-ago figures: $5.5 million and 10 cents a share.

Revenue slipped 2% to about $489 million from the same period in 2008 and missed analysts' top-line expectations of $502.5 million.

Same-store sales, meanwhile, fell 2.3%. Sales of merchandise declined 4%, which more than offset a jump in the company's service business, where same-store sales rose more than 5%.

-- Written by Scott Eden in New York

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