--ADDS BROKER COMMENT & SHARE PRICE--
Shoppers continue to get their Christmas kicks from JD Sports (LON:JD.), which today revealed 12% like-for-like sales growth for the five weeks up to January 3.
JD now expects an annual profit in excess of £90mln, which represents the ‘top end’ of market expectations.
Shares jumped as much as 8% in early deals.
The sports fashion retailer said the performance was particularly pleasing as it measures against strong comparatives from the prior year.
Executive chairman Peter Cowgill said JD’s “great momentum” reported earlier in the year had been maintained.
Following the strong Christmas trading the group had cumulative like-for-like sales growth of 12% for the 48 week period, up to January 3.
Freddie George, analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald, describes it as a “knock out” performance, which was well ahead of his expectations.
The analyst has as a result upgraded his profit forecast to £91.5mln from £86.5mln.
He also repeats a ‘buy’ recommendation and lifts the target price to 550p from 520p.
“The valuation, in our view, still does not reflect the true value of the JD concept,” George said in a note.
“The JD format has a great track record growing operating profits by 12% p.a. over the last three years, has the support of the leading sports brands, Adidas (ADS GR – NC) and Nike (NKE US – NC), in sports fashion and has significant potential to be developed overseas, where it now has momentum.”
Investec’s Kate Calvert increased the broker’s target to 610p, repeated a ‘buy’ and said the current valuation still looks undemanding.
The analyst added JD has significant growth opportunities in the UK and Europe.
Elsewhere, N+1 Singer analyst Matthew McEachran called it a “sector topping” performance and also upgraded slightly his forecasts and targets.
JD expects to release its preliminary results on April 15.