• Sierra is TJX's outdoor lifestyle brand, selling apparel, gear, home goods, and pet products.
• It's still relatively small, but TJX said the chain could grow to 325 locations.
• Business Insider visited a store for a closer look at T.J. Maxx's younger, sportier sibling.

Shopping for outdoor lifestyle stuff is normally a quick way to burn a lot of cash.

Whether at Dick's Sporting Goods or REI, well-made apparel and gear usually come at a premium price — even with the occasional coupon or sale.

My consumer experience with activewear (and inactivewear), shoes, and other accessories led me to believe the relationship between quality and price was somewhat fixed.

That was before I discovered Sierra.

I gave my local store in Madison, Wisconsin, a look for the first time a few years ago.

I've done plenty of shopping at Sierra's more widely known siblings, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods, and I never really felt the spark that keeps die-hard Maxxinistas coming back. Yes, the discounts at those stores seem large, but I'm not always able to tell if the price is actually a good value — especially if I don't recognize the brand.

Scanning the racks at Sierra was a different story, however. These were brands that I knew and trusted, like Smartwool, Carhartt, and more.

Each time I came back, I wondered why the Sierra brand wasn't more widely known relative to TJX's other brands and even other outdoor retailers.

It turns out, the reason is pretty simple. The brand was, and still is, fairly small and a more recent addition to the TJX portfolio.

Originally called Sierra Trading Post, the company started as a catalog company in 1986 in Reno, Nevada. It later moved to Wyoming and launched its e-commerce business in 1999.

TJX acquired it for $200 million in 2012. The first TJX-owned stores were located in Denver, followed by its first East Coast location in Burlington, Vermont.

In 2018, with a fleet of a few dozen stores, TJX relocated the company's headquarters to its main offices in Framingham, Massachusetts, and dropped the "Trading Post" from the name. The brand has since been on a growth spurt, on track to have 137 US locations by the end of this year.

In the longer term, TJX said it expects the brand to have 325 locations, more than triple the number of stores it had a year ago.

That gives Sierra the fastest growth rate of any brand in the TJX portfolio, though in fairness, T.J. Maxx and Marshalls have more than 2,500 US locations combined, so their growth is slower.

Sierra's tiny stature means it barely receives individual mention in TJX earnings calls beyond annual announcements of planned store openings, per equity research platform AlphaSense.

Out of the spotlight, Sierra has nevertheless been busy.

Foot traffic data from Placer.ai found that customer visits doubled between 2019 and 2022, driven in part by a pandemic-era rush to spend more time outside. While some of that increase is a result of simply having more stores, visits per store were also up, Placer.ai said.

In one of Sierra's rare mentions, TJX CEO Ernie Herrman characterized the store's assortment as "moderate to very high end " in 2022. My experience certainly supports his assessment.

Some recent treasure-hunt finds include the pair of Fjällräven pants I got, the pair of Lodge cast iron enamel dutch ovens in my kitchen, and an ever-expanding collection of insulated drinkware from Yeti, Stanley, and Hydro Flask.

High-quality items from known brands have also given me the confidence to try unfamiliar offerings from the store's assortment, and I am rarely disappointed. Hydrapeak's mugs may not have the current cultural cachet of Stanley's cups, but they do a solid job for a fraction of the price.

Sierra's selection can be somewhat limited compared to a traditional retailer's, but I almost always find something worthwhile. I now make a point of checking Sierra before or after trips to REI and Dick's.

Neither of those competitors is sleeping on Sierra, though.

In addition to its Public Lands stores, Dick's has recently experimented with clearance stores like the Warehouse Sale and Going Going Gone. And the online REI Outlet offers deep discounts on many of the items the co-op carries in its stores.

Still, Sierra has been in the game for a long time online, and its physical presence is expanding at a rate that could see it match REI's store count in just a few years.

Another difference is that, unlike other national or regional outdoor lifestyle chains, Sierra's parent company is a powerhouse of off-price retailing.

TJX's fingerprints are all over Sierra's stores, and the combination of its tried-and-tested playbook with this retail category makes the small but mighty brand an exciting one to follow.

TJX Companies (NYSE: TJX), the retail conglomerate that owns TJ Maxx and Marshall's, didn't wow the market with its most recent quarterly performance. In mid-May it published first-quarter of its fiscal 2026 results that disappointed investors, who traded out of the company's stock mainly due to weaker-than-expected guidance.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, however, a clutch of analysts tracking TJX stock reiterated their bullish takes on the company, with several going so far as to raise their price targets. Let's unpack the reasons for this and determine whether such optimism is justified.

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Grumbling about guidance

One indisputably positive element of TJX's first quarter was that the company managed to grow its most crucial sales figures. Its top line was slightly over $13.1 billion, representing improvement of 5% on a year-over-year basis -- rather a high rate for a discount retailer, and one that's been in the game as long as TJX. That top-line number also exceeded the consensus analyst estimates, if only slightly.

Same-store sales, always a crucial metric in the retail game, also didn't look bad -- they increased by 3% during the period. Meanwhile, the company's overall store count grew by 26 (to an end-quarter tally of 5,121), and of course that rise was at least partially responsible for the higher net sales.

Net income, based on GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles), went in the opposite direction, dipping by 3% to a shade over $1 billion. Like overall sales, this very modestly exceeded the average pundit projection.

So there wasn't anything overly concerning in TJX's key metrics for the quarter. The rub, however, was in the company's guidance. With the proviso that its assumptions were based on the state of the U.S.-China tariff dispute as of May 21, management provided an outlook for both its current (second) quarter, and the entirety of fiscal 2026.

TJX is modeling comparable sales growth of 2% to 3% year over year for the quarter, with earnings per share (EPS) coming in at $0.97 to $1. The latter range is 1% to 4% over the actual second quarter of fiscal 2025 result, yet those analysts following the company's stock have an average $1.04 estimate for the metric.

For the entirety of this fiscal year, TJX is anticipating that "comps" will rise at a 2% to 3% clip, which is somewhat dispiriting given that fiscal 2025's growth was 4%. Anyway, this should filter down into per-share earnings of $4.34 to $4.43, meaning year-over-year improvement of at least 2%. Again, though, the consensus analyst estimate is some distance north of that range, at $4.49.

It's safe to say that that bottom-line guidance misses were the chief drivers of the stock's post-earnings sell-off. The continued uncertainty over the state of our up-and-down tariff spat with China wasn't helping sentiment. either.

Image source: Getty Images.

Pundit positivity

None of this dissuaded most of the analysts making those projections. A typical reaction was the one from Bank of America Securities' Lorraine Hutchinson, who confidently reiterated her buy recommendation on the stock and $145 per share price target (which anticipates double-digit upside for the shares of 15%).

According to reports, Hutchinson feels that TJX is still effectively targeting "trade down" consumers, i.e. folks looking to save money by purchasing more modestly priced items than previously. At the same time, management is doing a fine job leveraging quality branded products to capture market share in a range of demographics.

As for tariffs, the analyst essentially believes that they are already priced into the stock. She wrote that much of the pressure of the tariffs is contained, at least in this current quarter. With those factors, the BofA Securities pundit slightly increased her EPS forecasts for both this and next fiscal year.

Growth and income, a fine combination

Let's get down to it -- does all this make TJX shares a buy?

I'd say yes. I agree with bullish takes like Hutchinson's, sharing the observations that management is working well with what it has to offer customers. I, too, am impressed with its efforts to fine-tune product mix. By my personal observation. TJ Maxx and Marshall's outlets continue to be durably popular and well trafficked. I think there are solid reasons for this.

Another reason to like TJX is that it is one of the steadiest and most reliable dividend payers in the retail sector. In fact, its latest dividend raise is about to kick in, for the 28th time in the last 29 years.

That combination of good prospects for fundamental growth and a regular payout constantly boosting shareholder income is appealing to me. I'm siding with the bulls on TJX stock.

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Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bank of America and TJX Companies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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*Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of May 7, 2025. The video was published on May 9, 2025.

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Parkev Tatevosian, CFA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends TJX Companies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Parkev Tatevosian is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through his link, he will earn some extra money that supports his channel. His opinions remain his own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.