Retail Darling Falls From Grace

A few months ago, Wall Street Lemmings were lauding Best Buy's strong financial results due in part to their ability to steal market share from Circuit City. However it now seems that the tapped out US consumer is catching up Best Buy as well. From marketwatch.com:

Best Buy Cuts Fiscal Year '08 View To EPS $3.05-$3.10, Sees Revenue $40B

Best Buy Co. (BBY) lowered its fiscal 2008 earnings forecast to the range of $3.05 to $3.10 a share from its previous view of $3.10 to $3.20 a share, citing soft domestic customer traffic in January. The Minneapolis electronics company said it expects results to fall short of planned targets in the fiscal fourth quarter, which ends March 1. It expects lower revenue in home theater, MP3 devices, digital imaging and video gaming, but higher volumes from notebook computers. Best Buy expects comparable store sales to decline "modestly" in the quarter. The company forecast fiscal year revenue of $40 billion, including an annual comparable store sales increase of 2.5% to 3%. Best Buy previously forecast a gain of 4%. Best Buy plans to open 130 to 160 new stores globally in its 2009 fiscal year and expects to increase total retail square footage by 10% to about 51 million square feet by the end of that year.