NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Vera Bradley (VRA) - Get Report are plummeting, sharply down 17.43% to $14.92 in late morning trading Wednesday, hitting a new low after the company issued a disappointing forecast for its current quarter and new fiscal year along with the release of its fourth quarter earnings miss earlier today.

CEO Robert Wallstrom said, "By this time, we had expected to regain momentum in the business, but that has not happened." 

The struggling handbag retailer said it has not attracted enough new customers to the brand, and therefore, both traffic and sales have been "very challenging."

Vera Bradley, known for its patterned handbags, backpacks and luggage, said it now expects earnings to be flat to three cents for the current quarter, below the 16 cents per share analysts had projected.

The company said it expects revenue in the current quarter to be in the range of $103 million to $109 million, below the $121.9 million analysts are expecting.

For the year, the company guided for earnings of between 82 cents to 92 cents per share on revenue of $510 million to $525 million. Analysts are calling for earnings of $1.19 per share on revenue of $567.4 million.

In its latest fourth quarter, sales at stores open at least a year fell 20.7% amid lower store traffic, while Internet sales dropped 7.3%.

Vera Bradley posted fourth quarter earnings of 43 cents per share, missing the 45 cents analysts were expecting. Revenue for the period came in at $152.6 million, also lower compared to analysts' estimates of $160.3 million.

In addition, Vera announced that it would close its Indiana manufacturing facility in May, because it has become too expensive to manufacture products domestically.

About 3.9 million shares of Vera Bradley have exchanged hands as of 10:36 a.m. ET today, compared to its average trading volume of about 353,444 shares a day.

Roanoke, IN-based Vera Bradley is a designer, producer, marketer, and retailer of functional accessories for women.

The company's products include a range of offering of handbags, accessories, and travel and leisure items. 

Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates VERA BRADLEY INC as a Hold with a ratings score of C. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate VERA BRADLEY INC (VRA) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed, some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, reasonable valuation levels and good cash flow from operations. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including feeble growth in the company's earnings per share, deteriorating net income and disappointing return on equity." You can view the full analysis from the report here: VRA Ratings Report

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