Stifel affirms its Hold rating on Aéropostale, Inc. (NYSE: ARO) following the retailer's Q2 results issued Thursday night.

Analyst Richard Jaffe noted that ARO's loss of $0.56 per share was flat with the firm's estimate.

Jaffe noted the following key takeaways from the report:

• Merchandise Looks Better - Overall, we believe the merchandise looks better with more on-trend colors and a more balanced assortment of core, fashion basics and fashion offerings that cater to the “real” teenager (not the fashionista teen who isn’t ARO’s target customer). Additionally, a robust merchandise testing process and localized product allocation should result in lower inventory risk through more relevant product offering, reducing markdowns and benefitting margins.
• Back-to-School Trends Improve – August month-to-date, comp sales are down in the low-single-digits, a significant improvement vs. (8)% in 2Q. Given the late Labor Day TY, only stores in the early back-to-school portion of the country have completed a full back-to-school floorset cycle. These stores, likely benefiting from the shift in the tax free holidays, have a positive comp month to date. In August, girl’s trends have continued to improve, comping positive chain wide. Men’s has also improved but comps continue to be negative.

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