Shares of J.M. Smucker Co. SJM, +0.06% slipped 0.5% in premarket trading Thursday, after the branded foods company reported fiscal first-quarter profit and sales that topped forecasts, but cut its full-year earnings outlook amid gross margin pressure. Net income for the quarter to July 31 fell to $153.9 million, or $1.42 a share, from $273.0 million, or $2.08 a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding nonrecurring items, adjusted earnings per share came to $1.90, above the FactSet consensus of $1.89. Sales declined 5.8% to $1.86 billion, beating the FactSet consensus of $1.80 billion. Cost of products sold grew 1.9% to $1.22 billion, reducing gross margin to 34.4% from 39.3%. “Our industry continues to navigate a period of significant supply chain volatility, disruption, and cost inflation,” said Chief Executive Mark Smucker. “In the near term, we expect to experience higher raw material and logistics cost increases.” For fiscal 2022, the company improved its sales growth outlook to negative 1.5% to negative 2.5% from negative 2% to negative 3%, but lowered its adjusted EPS guidance range to $8.25 to $8.65 from $8.70 to $9.10, as gross margin is expected to decline to 36.0% from 39.2% in fiscal 2021. The FactSet EPS consensus is $8.89. The stock has shed 5.4% over the past three months through Wednesday while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.22% has gained 7.2%.
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