Don't you just hate press releases issued 125 minutes after the market's closing bell rings? They're usually not all that flattering, and that's exactly what happened with Tuesday Morning (NASDAQ:TUES) on, er, Monday night. The retailer of bargain-priced closeouts warned that it was going to miss its June quarter targets, right on the heels of a brutal 8% to 9.5% slide in quarterly comps.

The chain is now hoping to ultimately earn just $0.07 to $0.10 a share for the current period -- less than half the $0.21 per share that Wall Street was expecting.

This is big. Tuesday Morning and its analysts are usually on the same page. Wall Street has nailed the company's earnings -- down to the penny -- in three of the past four quarters. The one time that the pros missed, it overshot the company's profitability per share by a mere penny.

That doesn't mean that Wall Street was happy with Tuesday Morning. Some model munchers had downgraded the company after earnings dipped in the March quarter on a 4.5% decline in same-store sales.

It's now practically a given that Tuesday Morning will suffer a slump in comps for its third straight year. One has to wonder if Tuesday Morning has either lost its touch or if thrifty shoppers have simply gone online for their penny-pinching pursuits.

Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) has been able to grow its top line aggressively, and even Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) features an outlet store. One can argue that the typical Tuesday Morning shopper isn't the type to be surfing the Web for deals, but the numbers don't lie. Pick a reason, any reason, and the end result is still that Tuesday Morning has been sandbagging results since store level sales peaked in 2003 and net profit margins peaked in 2004.

It's not getting any better, unfortunately. Investors also need to be sharp. Because of three down years, it will be easy for the company to prop up comps in future periods. Don't fall for it. That's what tricked some into falling back in love with Gap (NYSE:GPS) after it bounced back from a couple years of same-store sales declines. Wait for the profits to bounce back above and beyond its past peaks before you become a believer again. Either that, or wait for Tuesday Morning to issue an unannounced press release on a Tuesday morning instead of a Monday night.

Overstock was one of the original Rule Breakers recommendations -- until David Gardner soured on the shares and advised subscribers to move on. Amazon is an active recommendation in the Stock Advisor newsletter service. Gap is both an Inside Value and Stock Advisor recommendation.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz has stepped into a Tuesday Morning a few times, but can't recall the last time he actually bought something there. He does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this story. T he Fool has a disclosure policy. Rick is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.