For the quarter ending Feb. 3, earnings declined to $5.9 million, or 32 cents per share, down from $6.7 million, or 38 cents per share, a year earlier, breaking the company's string of 18 quarters of consecutive growth.

Company officials called the drop "a bump in the road" and said the firm's business fundamentals "remain strong" but Wall Street reacted sharply to the news, sending stocks plummeting 33%.

Jos. A. Banks chief financial officer David Ullman called the earnings decline "an aberration in our growth period," saying the drop was due largely to increased customer demand for fall merchandise which resulted in less demand for the firm's line of year-round clothing."Looking back with 20-20 hindsight, we think we probably were a little too price aggressive on some of the fall goods," R. Neal Black, the company's chief merchandising officer said.