Nordstrom Racks Up Wall Street Points on Earnings Beat, Strong Sales

Keep an eye on shares of Nordstrom (JWN) in Friday's trading session after the luxury department store reported better than forecast financial results for its fiscal second quarter. In its latest quarter, the specialty retailer earned $0.93 a share on revenue of $3.7 billion. Wall Street firms had forecast a profit of $0.90 a share on revenue of $3.67 billion, according to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. The top line showed an improvement from the same period of last year, but the profit came in lighter. The company had earned $0.95 a share on net sales of $3.3 billion for the 2014 second quarter. Total company same store sales for the second quarter increased by 4.9 percent. Sales at stores of the full-line and Nordstrom.com businesses open more than one year grew by 4.8 percent year over year, getting a boost from its cosmetics and women's apparel divisions. Nordstrom Rack, its discount line, showed a 1.7 percent increase in comparable sales from the previous year. Still inventory was up 11% for the period. TheStreet's Kurumi Fukushima reports in New York.