Apparel stocks shake markets across the Pond

Despite UK markets finished slightly lower on Tuesday

as upbeat domestic economic data was outweighed by concerns about growth in the euro area, all looks were on major retail players.

Primark and Marks & Spencer made it news after posting seasonal figures, while Michael Kors and Fossil were in the spotlight in the US markets.

Primark´s parent group ABF closed the session at down despite a better-than-expected annual results pulled by a strong performance from Primark. “I am delighted to report that the group has again delivered a great set of results. Grocery was much improved, Agriculture achieved record profits, Sugar was in line with our expectations and it was a remarkable year for Primark,” summarised the financial announcement the group´s CEO George Weston.

Primark’s “remarkable year” was one of the major reasons for the group’s strong overall performance. The fashion retailer benefited from increased retail selling space delivering a 22 percent year-on-year increase in revenue to 4.27 billion pounds. The increase in adjusted operating profit was of 44 percent, to 514 million pounds. Like-for-like sales grew by 5 percent for the full year.

Leading the upside was M&S after saying that its ‘transformation’ was on track following a 3.6 percent increase in sales in the first half, as a strong performance in food offset weakness in clothing, reported the ‘Independent’.

Lastly, Fossil became the leading stock in after-trade market. The jewellery and accessories group has improved earnings per share by 25 percent in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. “The company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past two years. We feel that this trend should continue,” commented the news analysts from TheStreetRatings.com.

“Investors have apparently begun to recognise positive factors, including earnings growth. This has helped drive up the company's shares by a sharp 45.74 percent over the past year, a rise that has exceeded that of the S&P 500 Index. Regarding the stock's future course, although almost any stock can fall in a broad market decline, FOSL should continue to move higher despite the fact that it has already enjoyed a very nice gain in the past year,” TheStreet summarised.