(Bloomberg) -- Stitch Fix (NASDAQ:SFIX) cilmbed 32% in pre-market trading Thursday after reporting sales that beat the highest analyst estimate. Again.
Big stock moves are nothing new for investors who have seen the shares of the clothing-subscription service rise or fall at least 20% the day after each of the past four earnings reports. And the gains usually don’t stick around. Even if the post-market surge continued into Thursday’s session, Stitch Fix would be trading at just the highest since March 18.
Stitch Fix had net revenue of $408.9 million in the fiscal third quarter, topping the highest analyst estimate at $398 million and prompting Stitch Fix to boost its annual revenue forecast. Active customers, a closely watched metric, rose to 3.1 million in the quarter, an increase of 17% year-over-year, the San Francisco-based company said.
Net revenue per client rose 7.7%, its fourth straight quarter of growth, as the company's algorithms targeted higher-quality customers and recommended highly personalized assortments to them, KeyBanc analyst Edward Yruma said.
``Amid one of the worst apparel earnings seasons in recent memory, Stitch Fix posted gross margin expansion,'' helped by fewer clearance discounts, Yruma wrote in a note reaffirming his overweight rating. ``Additionally, Stitch Fix is driving improvement to men’s gross margins, which are tracking comparable to women’s at a similar stage of development.''
(Updates with pre-market trading activity and analyst commentary.)