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Target shares rose 3.4 percent to $69.78
premarket.
Last week Wal-Mart Stores Inc <WMT.N>, the largest U.S.
retailer, reported its first rise in U.S. same-store sales in
seven quarters, helped by the drop in gasoline prices.
Target now expects adjusted earnings of $3.15-$3.25 per share
for the year ending January, compared with its previous forecast
of $3.10-$3.30 per share.
The company has had to resort to price cuts to attract
cash-strapped consumers and win back customers unsettled by a
huge holiday-season data breach last year.
Target's net income rose to $352 million, or 55 cents per share
in the third quarter ended Nov. 1, from $341 million, or 54
cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding items, the company earned 54 cents per share.
Total sales rose 2.7 percent to $17.73 billion.
Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $17.56 billion,
according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Last year's breach resulted in the theft of at least 40 million
payment card numbers and 70 million other pieces of customer
data.
The company said on Wednesday it had incurred net breach-related
expenses of $158 million so far, including $12 million in the
third quarter.
Up to Tuesday's close, Target shares had risen 6.7 percent this
year.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne and Sruthi Ramakrishnan; Editing by
Savio D'Souza)
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