What was the impact of BJ's beefy earnings?

Club-style retailer BJ's Wholesale (NYSE: BJ) - placing third in the overall membership-warehouse game behind Costco (NYSE: COST) and Wal-Mart's (NYSE: WMT) Sam's Club - is the leading retailer of its kind in the New England region.

As Michael reported this morning, BJ issued second-quarter net income of $36.3 million, a 37% jump from previous-year results. Excluding various items and charges, the company would have banked 46 cents per share, a nickel better than analysts were expecting. Sales were on par with Wall Street's consensus view, up 8% at $2.25 billion.

The stock gapped higher out of the gate and gained as much as 5.4% at its intraday peak (reached around 2:45 p.m.). But recently familiar late-day selling pressure set in, and BJ closed with a gain of just under 3.0%. While that's nothing to sneeze at, the stock did fail to top its 20-day moving average, which the shares had managed to hurdle earlier in the session. This descending short-term trendline has worked in tandem with the equity's 10-day to guide the stock lower since July 20. During this one-month period, the shares have unraveled by about 15%.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.