Hey no post since april 15? wow!
so what about the big drop from 32 to 22 and now at 24?
anyone?
I'm posting for the heard on the street colum from the wall st journal
The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition -- July 21, 1998
Analysts Favor Small Retailers
More Than the Bigger Names
By ROBERT BERNER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The big names of retailing -- Wal-Mart Stores, Federated Department Stores, Sears and Gap -- have scored impressive stock-price gains this year in a robust environment for consumer spending.
But those aren't the ones on the buy lists of some of the best retailing-stock pickers as measured by the Wall Street Journal annual All-Star Analysts Survey. Many of their current favorites are hardly household names.
Asked to name the stocks they felt would be the best performers over the next 12 months, the three top retailing analysts cited less well-known companies catering to the discount market or narrower niches, from Dollar General to AutoZone to Zale jewelers and Party City.
Craig Weichmann of Morgan Keegan, the No. 1 retail-stock picker in the Journal tally last year, is betting on three retailers whose shares have pulled back -- Party City, Proffitt's and Consolidated Stores -- and a retailer that is just being discovered by investors, AutoZone.
Party City is the leading player in the party-supplies business, with such offerings as paper plates, Halloween costumes and other party goods. Its shares plummeted 16% on July 9, when it disclosed it had slightly fallen off its aggressive store-opening plan. Still, sales at stores open at least a year were up handsomely.
"None of the fundamentals of the business has changed," he says. He adds that at a multiple of 23 times this year's earnings, which are expected to be up 35% from last year, Party City stock is a bargain at 21 15/16.
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