Foot Locker stock surges 20% as turnaround shows signs of life

Foot Locker's turnaround is starting to bear some fruit. 

The sneaker giant saw comparable sales decline 1.8% during its fiscal first quarter, far better than the 3.1% drop-off that analysts expected, according to StreetAccount. 

The company also reaffirmed its fiscal year guidance, which projects sales to be between a 1% decline and a 1% gain, compared with a decline of 0.6% that analysts had forecast, according to LSEG. 

Shares of Foot Locker surged 20% Thursday.

Here's how the company did compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Foot Locker's reported net income for the three-month period that ended May 4 was $8 million, or 9 cents per share, compared with $36 million, or 38 cents per share, a year earlier. Adjusting for one-time items, including impairments associated with certain store closures and restructuring, among other costs, Foot Locker reported earnings of 22 cents per share.

Sales dropped to $1.88 billion, down about 3% from $1.93 billion a year earlier. 

For the full year, Foot Locker expects adjusted earnings per share to be between $1.50 and $1.70, ahead of estimates of $1.57, according to LSEG. 

The company is expecting comparable sales growth of between 1% and 3%, ahead of the 1.5% growth that analysts had expected, according to StreetAccount. 

"We had a solid start to the year in the first quarter, which demonstrates that our Lace Up Plan is working," CEO Mary Dillon told CNBC in an interview. "The reason I feel confident — we're launching an enhanced FLX rewards program, so we have a lot of opportunity with rewards. We're launching a revamped mobile app, which we know is a great way to drive customer engagement and commerce and we see growth opportunities ...