Boohoo, N Brown and Inditex shape up a European flavoured session

In a strongly Europe-dominated session, Manchester-based online fashion retailer Boohoo.com and plus-sized peer N Brown shown contrasting stories on the London stock market Wednesday following trading updates.

Both have been battling the difficult conditions for retailers of late but Boohoo.com seems to have left the troubled waters behind after it announced a 27 percent surge in full year revenue albeit following a profit warning back in January, highlighted Bloomberg.

As a result, Boohoo's shares rose 6 per cent, or 1.3 pence to 26.6 pence, sustained as well by surprise plans for a share buy-back, although the stock still remains below the 50 pence price they were floated at back in March last year.

In Madrid, Inditex stock suffered from what some in the trade have called ‘a pre-results panic attack’, as the largest apparel retailer in the world approaches its full year results publication on March, 18. The stock has lost 2.5 percent in barely two days.

Still in Europe, Hugo Boss AG predicted Thursday before the market opening profit growth this year as the company takes control of more stores to offset slower growth at home.

The German fashion house reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation and excluding special items will increase by 5 percent to 7 percent in 2015. Sales excluding currency effects will rise by a mid-single-digit percentage.

In contrast, fashion retail sales in Germany declined 8 percent in the fourth quarter, according to Kepler Cheuvreux. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. last month said the European luxury industry will be in “transition” this year, trimming its forecast growth rate and advising clients to sell Boss shares, reported Reuters.

“We will again be able to master the macroeconomic challenges this year,” Chief Executive Officer Claus-Dietrich Lahrs said in the statement. “Looking ahead over the next few years, Hugo Boss faces excellent prospects for growth.”