Top Performer for Thursday

Shares of The Buckle, Inc. (BKE - Snapshot Report) are up double digits Thursday after the retailer announced strong fiscal fourth-quarter results, which included a healthy same-store sales advance of 14.3%.

Net sales gained 21.5% in the quarter to $251.4 million from last year's $207 million. Meanwhile its earnings per share surpassed both the consensus and year-ago result.

BKE is a top-performing Zacks #1 Rank company for today with a share price that has advanced more than 12%.

For the full fiscal year, net income moved higher by almost 39% while sales increased nearly 28%.

Analysts have been raising earnings estimates on this fiscal year for a while now, as BKE has been performing rather well in one of the most difficult environments in years. In fact, expectations for the year ending January 2010 are up 4.9% in the past 2 months.

However, BKE isn't the only retailer making positive news during this tough time, as fellow youth-oriented company Hot Topic (HOTT - Analyst Report) recently announced a solid quarterly report. Zacks Equity Research analyst Rob Plaza, CFA recently wrote on the performance in the Analyst Blog.

BKE is 1 of 4 companies from the apparel/shoe retail industry on the Zacks #1 Rank List today. The other 3 companies are Christopher & Banks Corporation (CBK - Snapshot Report), Citi Trends (CTRN - Analyst Report) and Dress Barn, Inc. (DBRN - Snapshot Report).