10:21 AM EDT, 08/21/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Macy's (M) trimmed its full-year sales outlook on Wednesday amid an uncertain discretionary consumer market, as the department store operator's fiscal second-quarter topline declined on a yearly basis.

Sales are now set to come in between $22.1 billion and $22.4 billion during the current fiscal year, compared with the company's prior projection of $22.3 billion to $22.9 billion. The consensus on Capital IQ is for revenue of $22.43 billion. The company estimates comparable owned-plus-licensed-plus-marketplace sales to be down 0.5% to 2% versus the previous guidance for sales to be down 1% to up 1.5%.

"Our outlook assumes a more discriminating consumer and heightened promotional environment relative to our prior expectations," Chief Financial Officer Adrian Mitchell said on an earnings call, according to a Capital IQ transcript. "We believe our range gives us room to address the ongoing uncertainty in the discretionary consumer market."

The stock slid 14% in Wednesday trade. Macy's continues to forecast full-year adjusted earnings in a range of $2.55 to $2.90 per share. The Street is looking for $2.78.

For the three months through Aug. 3, the company reported adjusted EPS of $0.53, up from $0.26 the year before, surpassing analysts' $0.29 estimate. Sales slipped 3.8% to $4.94 billion, trailing the Street's view for $5.05 billion.

"We entered the second quarter with an expectation that discretionary spend would remain stable, reflecting a resilient but choiceful consumer," Chief Executive Tony Spring told analysts. "As the quarter progressed, our customer became more discriminating, which we attribute to ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty and an increasingly complex news cycle."

Comparable sales fell 4% on an owned basis, compared with four analysts' meant forecast for a 1.5% decrease. By brand, Macy's comparable sales dropped 4.5% on an owned basis while Bloomingdale's dipped 1.1%. Bluemercury comparable sales increased 2%.

For the third quarter, the company expects its bottom line to range between an adjusted loss of $0.04 a share to earnings of $0.01, "including a roughly $30 million asset sale gain assumption for the monetization of non-go-forward assets," Mitchell said on the call. Sales are pegged at $4.7 billion to $4.82 billion. The Street is looking for normalized EPS of $0.01 and revenue of $4.82 billion.

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