Macy’s (M) Q4 2025 earnings

Macy’s on Wednesday beat Wall Street’s quarterly sales and profit expectations as its namesake brand showed signs of progress, yet still gave a cautious outlook for the year ahead.

For the fiscal year, the company – which is made up of the Macy’s chain, higher-end department store Bloomingdale’s and beauty retailer Bluemercury – said it expects sales of between $21.4 billion and $21.65 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $1.90 to $2.10.

Both of those would represent a drop from this past fiscal year, when revenue totaled $21.8 billion and adjusted earnings per share were $2.15. Macy’s sales outlook roughly matched or exceeded analysts’ expectations of $21.42 billion, but its adjusted earnings guidance came in shy of Wall Street’s expectations of $2.17 per share for the year, according to LSEG.

Macy’s said it expects comparable sales, an industry metric that takes out short-term factors like store openings and closures, to range from a 0.5% decline to a 0.5% increase. 

In an interview with CNBC, CEO Tony Spring said Macy’s results show that its strategy is working. All three of its brands grew in the fiscal year and holiday quarter. It marked the fourth consecutive quarter of Macy’s beating Wall Street’s sales guidance. And for the first time in three years, Macy’s returned to positive growth, with comparable sales increasing 1.5% for the full year. 

Even in recent weeks, he said Macy’s shoppers have shown “continued resiliency” as they spend on fresh clothing and gravitate to newer brands and trendier items. 

Yet, he said Macy’s and other retailers have new unknowns that make the year ahead harder to predict and caused the company to take a “prudent” approach with its outlook.

“Given the environment that we operate in, it makes sense for us to not put a hockey stick out there and suggest that we have visibility into what the remainder of the year is going to reveal itself to be,” Spring said.

“Where will gas prices be the remainder of the year? How long will the conflict go on in the Middle East? Will the tariffs be refunded? Will other tariffs be enhanced or raised? Will the resilient consumer continue?” he said. “We’re not economists. The team is really focused on controlling what they can control.”

The company’s full-year guidance takes into account “macroeconomic and geopolitical factors that could influence discretionary spend,” according to a news release. It said the outlook anticipates a larger hit…