Key Takeaways
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Wingstop shares rose 13% after third-quarter adjusted EPS of $1.08 beat the $1.02 analysts expected, despite a revenue miss.
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The stock had already fallen so far that a modest beat and steady restaurant openings were enough to spark a relief rally.
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Domestic same store sales fell 5.4%, and Wingstop now expects them to fall 6.5% to 7% in 2026, worse than its earlier 4% to 6% decline.
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The next test is whether management’s early signs of a turnaround show up in same store sales in the fourth-quarter report.
Wingstop (WING:NASDAQ) shares are up 13% this morning after its third-quarter earnings beat estimates, even though CEO Michael Skipworth said outright that he’s “not satisfied” with the results.
That’s a lot for a stock to shrug off. Revenue missed, same store sales shrank again, and management cut its sales guidance.
What exactly happened
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Adjusted EPS of $1.08, ahead of the $1.02 analysts expected but down from $1.09 a year ago
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Revenue up 5.3% to $185.1 million, short of the $192.9 million consensus
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System-wide sales up 6.0% to $1.44 billion, with 76 net new restaurants
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Domestic same store sales down 5.4%, on top of a 5.6% drop a year earlier
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2026 domestic same store sales now seen falling 6.5% to 7%, against 4% to 6% before
Wingstop blamed the drop on fewer transactions as consumers keep pulling back. Skipworth didn’t sugarcoat it in the company’s earnings release:
“While we are not satisfied with our third quarter results and the improvement in sales performance is taking time, we are encouraged by the early indicators from the changes we’ve made.”
TIKR tracks 28 analysts on Wingstop. How many say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on Wingstop, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See Wingstop’s Analyst Ratings
The bar was on the floor
Wall Street had already priced in plenty of pain. Wingstop’s forward P/E hit a five-year low of 21x in late September, and at yesterday’s close it was 26x, a fraction of its 75x five-year average…
After today’s jump, it’s closer to 29x.
At that price, a modest beat was enough, along with guidance for 440 to 450 net new restaurants this year (14.4% to 14.7% unit growth). (The beat does come with an asterisk: a $2.0 million drop in stock compensation from forfeited awards was worth about a nickel a share after tax.)
New restaurants are carrying the load
Analysts still expect normalized EPS to climb from $4.08 in fiscal 2025 to $5.30 in fiscal 2027…
