John Klinger
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at TJX Companies
Thanks again, Ernie. Before I start, I want to remind you that our fiscal '24 calendar includes an extra week in the fourth quarter.
Now, starting with our fourth quarter guidance. We will continue to expect overall comp store sales growth to be up 3% to 4%. As a reminder, our comp guidance for the fourth quarter excludes our expected sales from the extra week in the quarter.
For the fourth quarter, we expect consolidated sales to be in the range of $15.9 billion to $16.1 billion, which includes approximately $800 million of revenue expected from the extra week. We now expect fourth quarter pretax profit margin to be in the range of 10.4% to 10.6%. Excluding an expected benefit of approximately 40 basis points from the extra week, we expect adjusted pretax profit margin to be in the range of 10.0% to 10.2%. On a 13-week basis, this would represent an increase of 80 basis points to 100 basis points versus last year's pretax profit margin of 9.2%. The decrease in the fourth quarter pretax profit margin guidance is due to the expected reversal of the approximately 40 basis-point benefit we saw in the third quarter from the timing of expenses.
Next, we expect fourth quarter gross margin on a 13-week basis to be in the range of 28.2% to 28.4%, up 210 basis points to 230 basis points versus last year. We're planning a significant benefit from lower freight costs as well as a benefit from our year-over-year shrink accrual, partially offset by headwinds from our ongoing supply chain investments. On a 13-week basis, we're planning fourth quarter SG&A to be approximately 18.5%, up 150 basis points versus last year. This expected increase is primarily driven by incremental store wage and payroll costs and higher incentive accruals.
For modeling purposes, we're currently assuming a fourth quarter tax rate of 26%, net interest income on a 13-week basis of about $49 million, and a weighted average share count of approximately 1.15 billion shares. As a result of these assumptions, we now expect fourth quarter earnings per share to be in the range of $1.07 to $1.10. Excluding an expected benefit of approximately $0.10 from the extra week, we expect fourth quarter adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $0.97 to $1.00. On a 13-week basis, this will represent an increase of 9% to 12% versus last year's earnings per share of $0.89.
I want to be clear that our assumptions for comp sales, pretax profit margin and earnings per share for the fourth quarter are unchanged versus our previous guidance. The decrease in the fourth quarter pretax profit margin and earnings per share guidance is due to the expected reversal of the approximately 40 basis points and $0.03 benefit from the timing of expenses that we saw in the third quarter.
Now, to the full year. We are now expecting overall comp store sales increase of 4% to 5%. As a reminder, our comp guidance excludes our expected sales from the 53rd week. For the full year, we now expect consolidated sales to be in the range of $53.7 million to $53.9 billion, which includes approximately $800 million of revenue expected from the 53rd week.
We expect full year pretax profit margin to be approximately 10.8%. Excluding an expected benefit of approximately 10 basis points from the 53rd week, we expect adjusted pretax profit margin to be approximately 10.7%. On a 52-week basis, this would represent an increase of 100 basis points versus fiscal '23 pretax profit margin of 9.7%.
Regarding shrink, our indicators are still leading us to believe that we can continue to plan shrink flat for fiscal '24. As a reminder, we will not know the full effect of our shrink initiatives or the accuracy of our indicators until we do a full annual inventory count in January.
Moving to full year adjusted gross margin on a 52-week basis, we now expect it to be approximately 29.6%, a 200 basis-point increase versus last year. We expect virtually all of this increase to be driven by a benefit from lower freight costs. This guidance also assumes a continuation of headwinds from our supply chain investments. We are very pleased with the level of freight recapture we've seen so far this year and remain focused on looking for ways to reduce our freight costs going forward.
For the full year, adjusted SG&A on a 52-week basis, we are now expecting it to be approximately 19.2%, a 130 basis-point increase versus last year. This expected increase is primarily driven by incremental store wage and payroll costs, and higher incentive accruals. For modeling purposes, we're currently assuming a full year tax rate of 25.7%, net interest income on a 52-week basis of about $165 million, and a weighted average share count of approximately 1.16 billion shares.
As a result of our above planned third quarter earnings performance, we are increasing our full year earnings per share guidance to a range of $3.71 to $3.74. Excluding an expected benefit of approximately $0.10 from the 53rd week, we expect adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $3.61 to $3.64. On a 52-week basis, this would represent an increase of 16% to 17% versus fiscal '23's adjusted earnings per share of $3.11. It's important to understand that we did not flow through the entire third quarter earnings per share beat to the fourth quarter because of the $0.03 of costs related to closing of the e-commerce business.
In closing, I want to reiterate that we are very pleased with the execution of our teams across the company in the third quarter and are confident in our plans for the fourth quarter. Long term, I want to reiterate that we will not be complacent when it comes to looking at ways to improve our profitability. We have a very strong balance sheet and are in an excellent financial position to invest in the growth of our business and simultaneously return significant cash to our shareholders.
Now, we are happy to take your questions. As we do every quarter, we're going to ask that you please limit your questions to one per person, so we can keep the call on schedule and answer as many questions as we can. Thanks. And now, we'll open it up for questions.