The U.S. stock market traded in the green Friday with the Dow up 200 points, driven by a jobs report that beat expectations. The U.S. economy created 223,000 new jobs in May, making the unemployment rate fall to an 18-year low of 3.8%.
Shares of Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF, Financial) fell on Friday trading after the company posted a first-quarter loss of 56 cents on revenue of $730.9 million, which was 10.6% higher than the comparable period. The company beat revenue expectations by $34.25 million and earnings expectations by 21 cents.
Fran Horowitz, the company's CEO, said, "Results exceeded our expectations driven by a 5% increase in comparable sales, gross margin expansion, and 460 basis points of expense leverage. Hollister continued to drive strong sales growth across channels and geographies and Abercrombie built momentum with another quarter of positive comparable sales led by strength in North Americaā.
Further, the gross profit rate was 60.5%, up 20 basis points from last year.
Looking ahead, the company expects comparable sales to be up in the range of 2-4% and gross profit rate to rise slightly from 59.7%.
Gainers
ā¢ Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD, Financial)
ā¢ TripAdvisor Inc. (TRIP, Financial)
ā¢ Intel Corp. (INTC, Financial)
Losers
ā¢ SCANA Corp. (SCG, Financial)āā¹
ā¢ Wynn Resorts Ltd. (WYNN, Financial)
ā¢ Eversource Energy (ES, Financial)
ā¢ Cimarex Energy Co.āā¹ (XEC, Financial)
Global markets
The main European stock markets traded in the green. The U.K.'s FTSE gained 0.47%, Germany's Dax advanced 1.05%, Spain's Ibex jumped 1.80% and France's CAC rose 1.40%.
In Asia, markets closed mixed. Japan's Nikkei closed down 0.14%, ChinaĀ“s Shanghai retreated 0.66% and Indiaās BSE Sensex slid 0.27%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.08%
Disclosure: The author holds no position in any stocks mentioned.
