Stock Analysis
Dollar General: Is Not So General
June 10, 2004 – TheStreet.com: Street Insight DG should be accumulated on any consumer weakness numbers. There is still growth ...
Barron’s is Wrong on Colgate
April 28, 2004 – TheStreet.com: Street Insight The most recent Barron’s contains a favorable article about Colgate by senior editor ...
The Hidden Risk in Risk
April 1, 2004 – TheStreet.com: Street Insight We look at risk differently than most investors do. Rather than considering risk ...
The Hidden Risk in “Religion” Stocks
By Vitaliy Katsenelson, CFA March 22, 2004 A basic property of religion is that the believer takes a leap of ...
Attitude is Everything
March 4, 2004 – TheStreet.com: Street Insight Paraphrasing Yogi Berra, investment is 90% mental — the other half is ...
Russian Oil Production
By Vitaliy Katsenelson Paint me a skeptic or perhaps it’s just from being born in Russia, but I think Russian ...
Jos. A. Bank: You Betcha!
Jos. A. Bank (Nasdaq: JOSB) has reported its second-quarter numbers, and they aren't good -- they're great!To start with, sales were up 20.8%, and gross and operating margins improved, mainly driven by maturation of the company's fairly new store base. But the Jos. A. Bank story is not about growth -- it always had plenty of that. It is about inventories, and they were the bright, shining star of this quarter. Specifically, inventories increased only 11.7% over the second quarter last year. So why is that great news?To answer that question, it's necessary to understand the issues surrounding Jos. A. Bank. First, it has double the inventory days (a measure of how long it takes to convert inventory into sales) of its closest competitor, Men's Wearhouse (NYSE: MW), and second, it had a terrible first quarter due to too much seasonal inventory. I have written two long articles on the first issue, so let me address the second issue here.
