— Furniture Today,
STANLEYTOWN, Va. — Manufacturer Stanley Furniture has lowered its sales and earnings guidance for the current quarter, blaming continued weakness in furniture retail activity.

The company now expects its sales to decline by 8% to 10% from record shipments of $83.5 million in the 2012 second quarter.

Earnings are forecast at 29 to 31 cents per share, down from earlier guidance of 35 to 38 cents and from 44 cents in last year’s second quarter.

“The weakness in sales that we experienced in the later part of the first quarter and into the early part of the second quarter has continued throughout the second quarter so far,” said Jeff Scheffer, Stanley’s chairman, president and CEO. “We believe this is a result of overall current industry conditions.”

He said the company will announce second quarter results July 17.