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).

Read the full analyst report on CBK

Read the full analyst report on ASNA

Read the full analyst report on HOTT

Read the full analyst report on BKE

Read the full analyst report on CTRN