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market movers

With more rivals, Coach sales off

Coach Inc. helped build the luxury market with $299 handbags that are affordable for middle-income consumers.

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Coach Inc. helped build the luxury market with $299 handbags that are affordable for middle-income consumers.

Coach Inc. has beaten Wall Street sales estimates in 85 percent of all quarters over the past five years. But last week, Coach reported North American comparable sales that missed analysts’ predictions as well as its own projection. The largest US maker of luxury leather goods is facing rising competition from companies, such as Michael Kors Holdings, piling into the lucrative handbag category that Coach has dominated for more than a decade. A slowdown in consumer spending hasn’t helped. The Coach team is “very confident in our long-term growth prospects and our ability to drive our business at a double- digit pace,” CEO Lew Frankfort said. Sales at stores open at least a year advanced 1.7 percent in the quarter ended June 30, compared with a gain of 10 percent a year earlier.