Earnings announcement in the focus

Fashion and apparel retailers have been releasing corporate news and earnings for the past days, attracting

all looks in the main stock exchanges around the clock. Michael Kors, American Apparel or Supergroup were some of the names that had a louder echo.

Michael Kors has lately been in the lists of not a few analysts. The stock has declined in the week to date, with analyst at Citi Investment Research Oliver Chen noticing some slowing sales growth.

In a note to clients, Chen anticipates that Easter and Mother’s Day contributed to April and May slightly higher sales. However, in June sales growth slowed to 7.8 percent. The analyst questioned why sales would slow, as weather was improving and traffic was up.

Consequently, the analyst lowered his price target over Michael Kors shares from 107 to 98 dollars a piece.

Elsewhere, the Nikkei stock index shed 0.1 percent Wednesday as investors looked to cash in on recent gains amid a dearth of fresh incentives and despite the yen's retreat against the US dollar.

Earnings announcements were in focus in Tokyo and retailers reported better-than-expected earnings.

Nevertheless, fashion retailer Samantha Thavasa, known primarily for handbags, leapt 7.1 percent to 878 yen, following the firm announcing its quarterly profit surged 73 percent to 808 million yen from a year earlier, on a 45 percent jump in sales. Net income in the period surged 73.5 percent to 808 million yen compared to 466 million yen and earnings per share jumped to 22.92 yen from 13.21 yen a year earlier.

On a separate note, Supergroup PLC (LON:SGP)‘s stock had its ‘hold’ rating reaffirmed by research analysts at Numis Securities Ltd in a report released on Monday. They currently have a 1,100 pence target price on the stock, which suggests a potential upside of 1.57 percent from the company’s current price. The stock’s 50-day moving average is 1,053.56 pence, giving the company a market cap of 918.1 million pounds.