Children's Place shares slide as earnings hurt by unseasonably cold weather

The Children's Place Inc. shares PLCE, -9.93%slid 5.1% in premarket trade Thursday, after the retailer posted weaker-than-expected earnings for the first quarter, as unseasonably cold weather kept shoppers away. The company said it had net income of $31.5 million, or $1.78 a share, in the quarter, down from $36.

2 million, or $1.97 a share, in the year-earlier period. Adjusted per-share earnings came to $1.87, well below the FactSet consensus of $2.21. Sales edged down 0.1% to $436.3 million, also below the FactSet consensus of $444 million. Same-store sales fell 1.8%, below the FactSet consensus for a gain of 2.5%. "Our ability to sell seasonal product in the first quarter was severely hampered by the combination of a record number of winter storms and the unseasonably cold temperatures that persisted across our major markets," Chief Executive Jane Elfers said in a statement. Once the weather improved late in the quarter, "our sales turned aggressively positive," she said. The company is still expecting fiscal 2018 adjusted EPS of 47.95 to $8.20, compared with a FactSet consensus of $8.16. Sales are expected to range from $1.920 billion to $1.935 billion as same-store sales range from up 3.5% to up 4.5%. The FactSet consensus is for sales of $1.906 billion and same-store sales of up 3.5%. Shares have gained 24% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 SPX, -0.22%has gained 15.5%.