Strong session ahead thanks to Asos and Inditex

Wednesday´s will be an interesting trading session for the

apparel industry stocks. With Asos and Inditex on the front foot, market is expecting investors to react to the quarterly corporate releases.

Nick Robertson, CEO at Asos , shared his content with the company´s quarterly results, stressing he is “pleased to report strong trading for the three months to 30 November 2012 with total retail sales up 30 percent to 166 million pounds (Rs 1,446 crores). Our UK performance was ahead of expectations at 24 percent, driven by better conversion of traffic alongside continued investment in both our proposition and pricing. Our International business grew by +34 percent and now accounts for 63 percent of our total retail sales. We achieved 57 percent growth in the US, 42 percent growth in ROW, and 15 percent growth within the EU. Once again the performance of countries where we have dedicated websites was significantly better than the EU performance as a whole.”

He particularly stressed that “The retail gross margin performance reflects a combination of a particularly strong comparative period, the UK accounting for a larger percentage of the total retail sales mix than initially planned and continued price reinvestment. We remain positive in our outlook and continue to trade in line with expectations.”

Meanwhile, in Spain, Inditex has everyone talking about its impressive 27 per cent benefit hike.

The shares fell 1.6 percent to 101.90 euros (Rs 718) as of 9:21 a.m. in Madrid, while the benchmark IBEX 35 Index climbed 0.1 percent. The stock has gained 62 percent this year, making Inditex the most valuable company in Spain at about 64 billion euros (Rs 4,51,054 crores).

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization climbed 25 percent from a year earlier to 2.78 billion euros (Rs 19,592 crores) as sales climbed 17 percent to 11.4 billion euros (Rs 80,344 crores). Analysts expected Ebitda of 2.79 billion euros (Rs 19,663 crores), according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

In constant currency terms, net sales increased by 15 percent. Net income totalled 1,655 million euros (Rs 11,663 crores), an increase of 27 percent from the same period a year earlier.