Earnings Report: Nordstrom’s Anniversary Sale Lifts the Company’s Earnings into the Positives

Corporate giant Nordstrom's latest quarter has been fruitful. Exceeding their own expectations and falling well-within their 2024 outlook hypothesis, JWN has remained as a healthy investment for your portfolio during quarter two of the fiscal year.

Of course, this quarter did have its financial perks for the company, namely their annual Anniversary Sale that acts as a “pre Black Friday.” Utilizing marketing, public relations, and social media, the company pushed their sale on all platforms, becoming a marketing stunt that Gen-Z loved. So long as your algorithms know you like fashion trends and sales, the company made sure that the Anniversary Sale was sprawled across your TikTok page. If you are an avid shopper like me, or just like to find a good deal every once in a while, you probably came across the Anniversary Sale and were tempted to take advantage of the deals. 

Nordstrom certainly took advantage of this. During the second quarter of 2024’s fiscal year, the company’s earnings reached $122 million, reaching an EPS of $0.72. Earnings before taxes reached $190 million, during this quarter.

This is substantially better for the company than quarter one, during which the company suffered a net loss of $39 million, and a loss per share of $0.24. Before taxes and marketing fees, the company had lost $21 million. 

Thankfully, partially due to the Black Friday-like magic of the company’s Anniversary Sale, Nordstrom was able to pull themselves out of their financial rut from the first quarter. Now, the company is in a financially healthy position to enter the third quarter, and is back within the range of its 2024 outlook. 

Interestingly, the company’s earnings from this past quarter are very similar to the earnings report from the second quarter of the 2023 fiscal year. During the second quarter of the 2023 fiscal year, the company’s total revenue reached $137 million, with an EPS of $0.84. While Nordstrom’s earnings were higher during the second quarter of 2023 than in this past quarter, the financial trends represented at any given moment during the fiscal years are similar. 

Similarly, the company experienced a large loss in the first quarter of the 2023 fiscal year of $205 million, leading to a loss per share of $1.27. The net loss per share from Q1 of 2023 is over 100 percent higher than the loss in Q1 of 2024. However, the revenue was also higher in Q2 2023 than in Q4 of 2024. Hopefully, the narrowing of the loss-to-revenue gap points to an overall trend of stability for the company. For now, the company is in a healthy position for Q3 and Q4. The truly telling sign will be evaluating Nordstrom’s earnings in Q1 of 2025. 

After Q2 of 2024, it is reasonable to conclude that JWN did, in fact, meet the consensus analyst assessments. The outlook earrings report for Nordstrom predicted that the company would be within this revenue range. Due to the dramatic increase in revenue during the second quarter of this fiscal year, the company no longer has diluted shares, the EPS is in the positives, and matches the trends from the previous fiscal year.