Shares of BJ’s Wholesale Club Holdings Inc.
BJ,
shot up 4.9% into record territory in premarket trading Thursday, after the membership-based warehouse retailer reported record fiscal second-quarter profit and sales that rose above expectations and boosted its full-year outlook. Net income rose to $141.0 million, or $1.03 a share, from $111.0 million, or 80 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding nonrecurring items, adjusted earnings per share of $1.06 was well above the FactSet consensus of 80 cents. Total revenue grew 22.2% to $5.10 billion, above the FactSet consensus of $4.67 billion. Same-store sales increased 19.8%, or rose 7.6% when excluding gasoline sales, to beat the FactSet consensus for 4.2% growth. Membership fee income increased 11.3% to $98.8 million. Merchandise gross margin decreased by a half percentage point, hurt by increased freight costs and investments in inflationary categories and general merchandise markdowns. For fiscal 2022, the company raised its adjusted EPS outlook to $3.50 to $3.60 from about $3.25. The stock has soared 29.4% over the past three months through Wednesday while the S&P 500
SPX,
has gained 8.9%.
