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Struggling Barnes & Noble stock is sinking

Shares of Barnes & Noble Inc. slid Thursday after the bookstore chain issued a disappointing firstquarter earnings report and posted results that were below analyst estimates.

The stock closed down almost

9.5% to close at $7.10.

The retailer said overall revenue slipped 6.6% to $853.3 million, missing expectations of $873 million, and its loss per share narrowed from minus 20 cents to minus 15 cents, short of the consensus of minus 12 cents.

Comparable sales were down

4.9% as drops in non-book categories such as games and toys weighed on improved book trends. Lower online and NOOK sales also pressured sales.

Said CEO Demos Parneros: “Our first-quarter earnings results improved over the prior year, as we were able to mitigate the sales decline through expense reductions.” He added that performance should improve in the back half of the year.

Barnes & Noble continues to struggle with the sea change in the book industry as Amazon.com now controls the majority of the market and has even begun challenging in the brick-andmortar world with its own stores. The company also looks weaker after being split from its college bookstore division, Barnes & Noble Education.

The company expects trends to improve over the rest of the year. However, with comps and revenue continuing to fall, the stock’s 8% dividend yield should eventually get slashed, which would send the stock even lower.