Shares of Big 5 Sports (NASDAQ: BGFV) , a sporting goods retailer predominantly focused on the western U.S., rose as much as 12% on March 2. The news driving the gain was the company's fourth-quarter 2021 earnings release, which hit the market after the close on March 1. It was mostly good reading, but you need to dig into the numbers just a little.
Fourth-quarter 2021 sales at Big 5 Sports tallied up to $273.4 million, with a 0.2% same-store sales increase over the fourth quarter of 2020. That said, 2020 included an extra week, so the total tally in the fourth quarter of 2021 was lower than in 2020, but it isn't really representative of the company's performance because of the extra week.
Notably, sales in the quarter were 10.9% higher than the same stanza of 2019, showing that Big 5 Sports has handily weathered the pandemic. For the full year, 2021 sales hit a record $1.16 billion versus $1.04 billion in 2020, which was the 53-week year. Same-store sales in 2021 were higher by 13.9% compared to 2020. That's a pretty good top-line update.
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Why Big 5 Sports Stock Rallied as Much as 12% Today