1-800-Flowers.com Stock Wilts as Analyst Calls Out 'Anemic' Everyday Gifting

1-800-Flowers.com (FLWS) shares sank successful intraday trading Wednesday aft D.A. Davidson downgraded nan company’s banal to "underperform" from "neutral" and lowered its value target.

The institution is expected to station a year-over-year income driblet of 6%, but D.A. Davidson Senior Research Analyst Linda Bolton Weiser believes we’ll spot an moreover larger decline, according to a statement published Wednesday.

D.A. Davidson, which lowered its price target to $8 from $9, pointed to Bloomberg debit paper data—which is 94% correlated to sales, according to nan note—indicating a 15% year-over-year driblet successful nan 4th quarter. 

1-800-Flowers typically sees an uptick successful income astir holidays, but day-to-day gifting has taken a important hit, nan statement said. 

"Consumers person tended to show up much connected nan large gift-giving holidays for illustration Mother's Day, but FLWS' mundane gifting business (which is nan mostly of sales) has been very anemic," Bolton Weiser wrote.

Year-Over-Year Sales Have Declined for Past 2 Years

In fact, 1-800-Flowers has seen year-over-year income diminution each 4th for nan past 2 years, and nan early isn’t looking rosy, either. 

"We besides deliberation FLWS could rumor fiscal 2025 guidance beneath nan Street: user sentiment remains astatine recession levels, mundane gifting is still anemic, and FLWS could look immoderate costs inflation," Bolton Weiser wrote.

Shares of 1-800-Flowers dropped 7% to $10.23 arsenic of 1 p.m. ET Wednesday to move into antagonistic territory for 2024.