Barnes & Noble Down On Earnings Miss

Barnes & Noble, Inc. BKS shares are down, but well off the lows of the session after the book seller reported earnings this morning that missed Wall Street consensus. The company reported a quarterly loss of $1.04 per share on $943 million in revenues. Wall Street had been expecting a loss of 91 cents per share on $1.39 billion in revenues. The company said its quarterly results were affect by the bankruptcy of its competitor, Borders Group Inc. which held going out of business sales during the quarter. Barnes & Noble said same-store-sales fell 2.9% during the quarter. Barnes & Noble counts stores open at least 15 months in this metric. Barnes & Nobel is still weighing the offer from Liberty Media LINTA, which was made last month for $1 billion. The company did say that its digital business, led by the Nook, is growing nicely, and that the digital business model is starting to take form. The company said it would not provide guidance because of the Liberty Media bid. At last check, shares were trading at $20.00, off 14 cents or 0.7%.