Ross Stores' sales were $312 million for the four week period ended August 28, 2004, down 1% from the $315 million in sales for the four weeks ended August 30, 2003. Comparable store sales for the same period declined 8%.
For the seven month period ended August 28, 2004, sales were $2.313 billion, a 7% increase above the $2.160 billion in sales for the prior year's comparable period ended August 30, 2003. Comparable store sales for the same period declined 1%.
Michael Balmuth, Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We continued to make progress in remedying the Core Merchandising System issues and are pleased to report that the majority of the critical information and trend data requirements we considered most important to the buying process were addressed by the end of August. This improved information is expected to increase the effectiveness of our buyers and gradually result in better business trends. However, as we have previously stated, we anticipate the residual effect of these issues to continue to negatively impact sales and earnings throughout the second half of 2004.”
Mr. Balmuth continued, “We are seeing a modest improvement in our business, with same store sales for the second half of August down 6%, compared to a 10% decline in the first half of the month. As a result, we are maintaining our prior same store sales forecasts of down 2% to down 5% in September and down 2% to up 1% in October. If same store sales perform in line with these projections, we now estimate that earnings per share for the third quarter ending October 30, 2004 will be toward the lower end of our previously-forecasted range of $.25 to $.30.”
