Foot Locker (FL) Shares Rally on Earnings Beat

Foot Locker, Inc. (FL) rallied $3.22, or 5.21%, to $60.25 in the pre-market session Friday after it reported fiscal-fourth quarter earnings results.

The athletic shoe retailer handed in non-GAAP earnings of $1.00 per share on revenue of $1.91 billion, beating Wall Street estimates of $0.91 per share on revenue of $1.87 billion.

For full-year 2014, total sales increased 9.9% to $7.15 billion, the highest level of sales ever recorded by the company. Comparable-store sales increased 8% in 2014. On a non-GAAP basis, 2014 EPS were $3.58, a jump of 25% over the $2.87 per share earned on a comparable basis in fiscal 2013.

“Our strong top-line performance was accompanied by continued discipline in managing expenses,” stated CFO Lauren Peters. “As a result, we set many new records for our company in 2014, including increasing our gross margin rate to 33.2% of sales and improving our annual SG&A expense rate to below 20% for the first time.”

On valuation measures, Foot Locker Inc. shares, which currently have an average 3-month trading volume of 1.83 million shares, trade at a trailing-12 P/E of 16.97, a forward P/E of 15.05 and a P/E to growth ratio of 1.37. The median Wall Street price target on the name is $62.00 with a high target of $70.00. Currently ticker boasts 13 ‘Buy’ endorsements, compared to 7 ’Holds’ and no ‘Sell’.

Profitability-wise, FL has a t-12 profit and operating margin of 7.04% and 10.99%, respectively. The $8.10 billion market cap company reported $967.00 million in cash vs. $132.00 million in debt in its most recent quarter.

FL currently prints a one year return of about 37% and a year-to-date return of around 2%.

The chart below shows where the equity has traded over the last 52 weeks.

Foot Locker Inc. operates as a retailer of athletic footwear and apparel. The company was founded in 1879 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

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