What Happened?
Shares of personal care and home fragrance retailer Bath & Body Works (NYSE: BBWI) jumped 7% in the afternoon session after Citi upgraded the company to Buy from Neutral ahead of second-quarter results, Investing.com reported. Analyst Paul Lejuez kept a $25 price target and called the setup an attractive risk/reward after the stock sold off on the last update. The bank models Q2 EPS of $0.26, above the $0.24 consensus and the company’s $0.20–$0.25 guide, and said the Fruit Fusion launch looks like an early win heading into more product and marketing in the second half. Citi also flagged possible upside from lower energy costs and tariff refunds, without changing its full-year estimates. JPMorgan added a milder assist, lifting its target to $24 from $22 while staying Neutral, MarketBeat reported.
The shares closed the day at $20.04, up 6.5% from the previous close.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Bath and Body Works’s shares are very volatile and have had 28 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 9 months ago when the stock dropped 22.9% on the news that the company reported disappointing third-quarter results and provided a weak full-year profit forecast. The personal care retailer's third-quarter revenue was flat year-on-year at $1.59 billion, missing analyst expectations of $1.63 billion. Its earnings of $0.37 per share also fell short of the consensus estimate of $0.39. Compounding the miss, Bath & Body Works issued full-year earnings per share guidance with a midpoint of $2.83, which was 16.1% below what analysts had been forecasting. The results pointed to ongoing demand headwinds, as the company's same-store sales have been declining over the last two years.
Bath and Body Works is down 3.8% since the beginning of the year, and at $19.96 per share, it is trading 37.4% below its 52-week high of $31.87 from September 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Bath and Body Works’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at only $335.80.
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