Signet Jewelers Ltd. shares jumped 7% in premarket trade Thursday, after the company raised its holiday season guidance and outlook for fiscal 2022, to reflect a stronger-than-expected performance. “We delivered operating margin expansion as our strategy drove higher traffic and strong conversion with effective promotion and cost management,” CFO Joan Hilson said in a statement. “Reflecting this strong performance and confidence in our business, today we’re announcing a $500 million expansion to the remaining $184 million available under the existing share repurchase program.” The company is now expecting holiday season sales of 42.4 billion, up 30.4% versus the same time a year ago. Same-store sales rose 25.2% and were up 35.1% compared with 2019, before the pandemic. With sales remaining strong in January, the company raised its fiscal 2022 guidance and now expects revenue of $7.78 billion, up from earlier guidance of $7.41 billion to $7.49 billion. It expects same-store sales to grow 48%, compared with earlier guidance of 41% to 43%. The FactSet consensus is for sales of $7.49 billion and same-store sales growth of 47.1%. Shares have gained 140.4% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained 17.7%.
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