Shares of the department store chain Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN) jumped 3.3% through 1 p.m. ET on Thursday after beating analyst forecasts for first-quarter earnings last night.

Heading into the quarter, analysts were feeling pretty downbeat about Nordstrom, predicting the retail stock would lose $0.08 per share on sales of $3.12 billion. As it turned out, sales came in at a healthy $3.18 billion, and instead of losing money, Nordstrom earned a surprise profit of $0.07 per share! Or did it?  

But while sales beat expectations, they were still down more than 11% year over year. What's more, the $0.07 per share in profit that Nordstrom investors seem so happy about today was an adjusted number. When calculated according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), Nordstrom actually reported a $1.27 loss per share.

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Source Fool.com