Investors liked what they heard from Genesco executives in a Tuesday sales update — despite it coming with a slightly lower profit outlook — and promptly pushed shares of the shoe and hat seller (Ticker: GCO) up more than 8 percent to their highest point in three months. CEO Bob Dennis said Genesco's Lids stores continue to struggle versus a year ago but that e-commerce sales are growing robustly across the company's divisions.

The comparable sales trend so far in January has strengthened, but the planned two-week delay in the commencement of federal tax refunds recently announced by the IRS will likely shift some significant portion of sales from the last week of January into the first quarter of the new fiscal year. Partly as a result of this sales shift, we now expect adjusted earnings per share from the low end to the middle of our most recently announced guidance range for the year.