Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of Blue Nile (NILE) jumped more than 12% Thursday after the online jewelry retailer announced solid third-quarter results and better-than-expected fourth-quarter guidance.
So what: Quarterly sales rose 6.9% year over year to $105.8 million, which translated to net income of $1.7 million, or $0.14 per diluted share. Both figures were roughly in line with analysts' expectations.
It's worth noting that Q3's performance was largely driven by international net sales, which jumped 25.6% year over year to $21.5 million. Meanwhile, U.S. engagement net sales climbed 5% to $60.8 million, while non-engagement sales continued to struggle, falling 1.7% to $23.5 million.
For the current quarter, however, Blue Nile expects net sales between $159 million and $174 million, and earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.42 to $0.47. The mid-point of both ranges sits significantly ahead of Wall Street's expectations, which called for earnings of just $0.43 per share on sales of $160.9 million.
Now what: Emphasizing that this marks a notable improvement over last quarter's disappointing results, Blue Nile CEO Harvey Kanter elaborated, "We are driving stronger brand communication, enhancing usability, and optimizing price which is helping to reaccelerate growth, achieve greater scale, and strengthen our leadership in loose diamond supply. Our results give us greater optimism for the holiday season."
In the end, with shares still down around 28% so far in 2014 even after today's pop, that sparkly view is exactly what patient Blue Nile investors had hoped to hear.
