Furniture Stocks Trade Near 52-Week Highs

• By the tickerspy.com Staff
• On 11:07 am EDT, Wednesday August 26, 2009

The summer earnings rally still has legs, helped by a pair of home furnishing stocks on Wednesday.

The Home Furnishing Retailer Stocks Index can frequently be found atop tickerspy's daily performance rankings, but there is not always significant news to pin the move to. Today, however, two of the Index's five components announced better-than-expected second-quarter numbers, and shares are flying as a result.

Williams-Sonoma (NYSE: WSM - News) earned $399,000 in the second quarter, a weak performance compared to last year's $17.4 million profit in Q2. However, the six-digit income was enough for the company to break even on a per-share basis, better than analysts' expectations of a -9 cent loss per share. The company also lifted its full-year adjusted profit guidance to between 19 cents and 31 cents a share. Analysts had expected full-year EPS to come in at less than a nickel. Williams-Sonoma is trading higher by 14% on the news.

Kirkland's (NASDAQ: KIRK - News) is also up big today after the company beat Q2 profit estimates by 13 cents a share. Overall, the company earned $3.4 million or 17 cents in EPS on net sales totaling $171 million. Kirkland's also boosted its full year guidance, but President and CEO Robert Alderson said, "annual results will still depend heavily upon the success of the fourth quarter holiday selling season."

Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY - News) remains the sector favorite among professional investors. At the end of Q2, 18 Pros held the stock among their top-15 U.S. listed positions.

Atlanta-based Haverty Furniture (NYSE: HVT - News) and Fort Worth, Texas-based Pier 1 Imports (NYSE: PIR - News) are both ahead in the furniture stocks rally. The stocks have tacked on respective gains of 14% and 20% over the last month.

As of this writing, the Home Furnishing Retailer Stocks Index is one of the 50 worst performing tickerspy Indexes over the last month, up by a mere 1%. However, most of the components are performing far better than the Index's average, which is calculated on a net asset value basis. Kirkland's -2% decline for the period weighs heavily on the average.

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