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Wolverine World Wide Holdings (NYSE:WWW) stock continued to climb higher on Wednesday after promoting a positive 2023 outlook at the closely-watched ICR conference this week.
The stock gained 5.26% on Wednesday, bringing gains for the week to over 17%. The weekly surge leaves the stock on a double-digit gain for the beginning of 2023, bouncing back from the worst ever annual plunge for the stock, over 63%, in 2022.
The stock jumped sharply on Tuesday after management outlined plans to slim its inventories and increase profits moving forward. Additionally, a preliminary Q4 sales forecast of $665M, edging out the Bloomberg analyst consensus at $658.8M. Inventories are slated to fall $75M sequentially to $805M. As analysts continued to parse the details, the stock continued its upward trend.
“Preannounced Q4 results were not materially worse than feared, and WWW highlighted positive progress on inventory work-down and balance sheet de-leveraging,” Baird analysts Jonathan Komp commented. “While we are pleased to see WWW acting with urgency to simplify the business and to drive better operating performance, we also believe achieving double-digit operating margin by 2024E could prove challenging amid potential economic headwinds.”
As such, he maintained a Neutral rating despite the positive presentation. The consensus rating on the Street remains a Hold.