North Miami Beach, Florida, T.J. Maxx & HomeGoods discount department store, furniture display and welcome sign.
Jeff Greenberg | Getty Images
TJX Companies posted a better-than-expected holiday quarter driven entirely by customer transactions, indicating the off-price giant is still taking market share from department stores and other discounters as price-conscious consumers hunt for deals.
The discounter behind T.J. Maxx, Marshall’s and Home Goods beat Wall Street’s expectations on the top and bottom lines, but it gave cautious guidance for the current fiscal year and current quarter.
For its fiscal 2026, TJX is planning for comparable sales to rise between 2% and 3%, below Wall Street expectations of up 3.4%, according to StreetAccount. Its fiscal 2026 earnings guidance of between $4.34 and $4.43 per share is well below estimates of $4.59 per share, according to LSEG, and its forecast for its current quarter also looks weaker than expected.
TJX is expecting comparable sales to climb between 2% and 3%, behind StreetAccount estimates of 3.4%, and it’s expecting earnings per share to be between 87 and 89 cents. Analysts were looking for 99 cents per share, according to LSEG.
A strong U.S. dollar and unfavorable exchange rates are expected to weigh on earnings growth by 3% in fiscal 2026, the company said in a news release.
Here’s how TJX did in its fiscal 2025 fourth quarter compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:
- Earnings per share: $1.23 vs. $1.16 expected
- Revenue: $16.35 billion vs. $16.20 billion expected
The company’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended Feb. 1 was $1.40 billion, or $1.23 per share, roughly flat compared with $1.40 billion a year earlier, or $1.22 per share, a year earlier.
Sales were basically unchanged at $16.35 billion, compared to $16.41 billion a year earlier. In the year-ago period, TJX benefited from an extra selling week that it didn’t have in fiscal 2025.
The discounter behind T.J. Maxx, Marshall’s and HomeGoods has been on a torrid growth path over the last couple of years as consumers look for cheaper options amid persistent inflation, high interest rates and an uncertain economic outlook.
Shoppers who’ve long gone to department stores like Macy’s, Kohl’s and even discounter Target have looked to TJX to buy not just clothes, but also household goods and other discretionary items they want but aren’t willing to pay full-price for.
That trade-down effect has been a boon to TJX, and even as its growth begins to slow, it’s one of the few retailers that stands to benefit from President Donald Trump’s tariff policies. To avoid paying high duties for imports out of China, and potentially Mexico and Canada, some companies have been stocking up and over-ordering deliveries.
If they’re ultimately unable to sell through that inventory and end up needing to liquidate it in off-price channels, that could be advantageous to TJX, which has long benefited from supply chain disruptions and other “chaos” in the market, its CEO Ernie Herrman told analysts in November when the company reported fiscal third-quarter earnings.
As TJX’s growth has slowed in the U.S., the discounter has started expanding overseas. It’s taken a stake in Brands for Less, a Dubai-based off-price chain, and also plans to enter Spain early next year.
