Saks Falls on Weak Same-Store Sales

On Thursday Saks said same-store sales, or sales in stores open at least one year, fell 2.9 percent, while analysts polled by Thomson Financial predicted a 3.5 percent raise.

Goldman Sachs analyst Adrianne Shapira said in a note to investors late Thursday that she expects March to be the "nadir" in 2008 in terms of sales for department stores.

"The perfect storm of declining consumer confidence, bloated inventory levels, and calendar shifts combined to yield a painful month of sales declines," Shapira wrote.

She expects April to be better, as the companies benefit from an extra selling day due to an earlier Easter and better weather.

Lehman Brothers analyst Robert Drbul on Thursday said Saks sales trends are decelerating.

"While pockets of strength remain in certain merchandise categories, we believe that the high-income consumer is becoming more cautious due to negative sentiment impacting their decision to make a purchase, as evidenced by year-to-date comp store sales declines at Saks, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom," he wrote.

He cut his price target for Saks to $15 from $19 and kept his "Equal weight" rating on the stock.

After rising nearly 2 percent on Thursday, shares fell 80 cents, or 6.3 percent, to $11.91 during afternoon trading. The stock has traded between $11.04 and $23.25 during the pat 52 weeks.