What happened
Shares of home goods retailer The Container Store (TCS -1.23%) took off at the open, gaining as much as 25% as trading got underway on Wednesday. At roughly 11 a.m. EDT, the stock was still holding on to a nearly 20% advance. The big news was the company's fiscal second-quarter 2021 earnings release, which hit the market after the close on Tuesday.
So what
The Container Store posted sales of $276 million in Q2, up 11% from the same period of 2020. The current tally was nearly 17% above the 2019 figure as well, showing consistent growth despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Adjusted earnings of $0.54 per share, meanwhile, were up from $0.43 in 2020. The sales and earnings numbers both marked records for the company.
Image source: Getty Images.
In addition to the record-setting quarterly results, The Container Store also managed to outdistance Wall Street's consensus estimates. On the sales side, the company only beat by a couple of percentage points. However, analysts had pegged earnings to come in at $0.32 per share. Beating earnings expectations by $0.22 per share is a pretty big deal, so it's no wonder investors were excited by the company's earnings update.
Now what
The Container Store is guiding for a $0.05-per-share drop in year-over-year earnings for its fiscal third quarter. So today's good news was nice, but the business isn't suddenly massively different than it was a day ago. That said, the quarterly update also noted that the company has 94 stores, up one from the year-ago period. And this, perhaps, is an even more important takeaway from today's earnings -- The Container Store has been able to grow its business, despite a terrible time for retailers in 2020, and it still has a fairly modest store count. There's likely to be a long runway for growth ahead.
