Retail plays Boohoo.com (LSE: BOO) and Carpetright (LSE: CPR) were both falling on Tuesday after releasing their latest trading updates.
Flooring giant Carpetright has tanked an eye-watering 14% from Monday’s close, with frantic selling activity sending it to two-and-a-half-year lows below 320p.
And clothes vendor Boohoo.com has dipped 3% on the day, the stock pulling back after charging to record peaks around the 50p marker.
But are the two firms still hot stock candidates despite today’s news?
Still in fashion
Boohoo.com advised the market that pre-tax profits leapt 42% in the 12 months to February 2016, to £15.7m, thanks to a 40% surge in revenues. Total sales clocked in at £195.4m during the period.
The online giant saw the number of active customers leap by more than a third in the period, to 4m, helped in no small part by its plans to supercharge international growth.
Indeed, sales outside of Europe galloped 56% higher during fiscal 2016, and non-UK sales now account for 33% of the group total. The introduction of new apps in the US and Australia, not to mention improvements to its product ranges, have all helped power global sales higher in the period, the retailer advised.
And Boohoo.com expects to keep this strong momentum going, and has pencilled-in sales growth of around 25% for this year alone.
The business is clearly on the up, and the City expects Boohoo.com to enjoy earnings growth of 29% and 21% for 2017 and 2018 respectively.
While these figures create vast P/E multiples of 33.9 times and 27.9 times, respectively, I reckon Boohoo.com’s exceptional growth outlook merits these heady premiums. I view today’s share price weakness as nothing more than mild profit taking, and expect the stock to keep charging higher.
Flooring it
Furnishings play Carpetright has also moved lower despite releasing reassuring trading numbers of its own.
The Purfleet business advised that its full-year expectations for the period to April 2016 remain unchanged, with pre-tax profit expected to come in at around £17.3m.
For the final quarter Carpetright announced that like-for-like sales had risen 0.7%, marking a slowdown from recent months — underlying revenues are expected to have risen 2.9% for the full year. But the latest quarter’s results have to be taken in the context of strong comparatives between February-April of 2015, Carpetright advised.
The retailer added that “our plan to revitalise the Carpetright brand remains on track,” the firm having shuttered two additional stores between February and April, and its new ‘retail concept’ outlets putting in an “encouraging” performance.
Like Boohoo.com, the City is convinced Carpetright should keep on delivering the goods, and has pencilled-in earnings growth of 30% and 23% for the years to April 2017 and 2018, respectively.
These projections create very attractive P/E ratings of 15.7 times and 12.7 times. I reckon the flooring giant is worthy of serious attention from bargain hunters following today’s share price collapse.
