Saks Q1 income down 86%

Thats right Saks Department Stores (sks) net income for the 3 months ending May 5 dropped 86% mostly because of the gain of over $60 million when it sold of its mid-level stores (Parisian in Indianapolis) to focus on the luxury market. If you exlude the sale of the mid-level stores, same-store sales were actually up 14.4% (this is the key for management on performance). This shows that the luxury market is hot and companies want to focus on it where the margins are generally a lot better than mid-level or discount items. Information for this blog came from yahoo finance and the following page: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070521/earns_saks.html?.v=6.