Posts for Ticker ‘JOSB’

JoS. A. Bank Expanding Further (JOSB)

JOSB LogoJoS. A. Bank Clothiers, Inc. (NASDAQ: JOSB) is one of the more unique clothing and apparel stocks out there.  The company has managed to grow revenues in recent years, and despite the economy it is expected to grow revenues for each of the next two years if the analysts are correct in their projections.  But this is a short sellers battleground stock and may have created more interest today now that it announced an expansion to its growth plans.
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Posted on: August 25, 2009 – 2:50 pm in Apparel, Retail,

24/7 Wall St. Day-Trading Alerts (SPLS)(CNFT)(XFML)(JOSB)

Cammonopoly_wideweb__430x3250According to VSInvestor, several stocks are moving this morning on large volume.

Staples (SPLS) is off 9% on poor earnings. These are notes on China Techfaith (CNFT) hitting an all-time low.

Xinhua Finance Media (XFML) opened up sharply. Jos. A Bank Clothiers (JOSB) sold off on no news.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: August 19, 2008 – 8:59 am in Research, , , ,

Jos. A. Bank Earnings Send Shorts Scrambling (JOSB)

JoS. A. Bank Clothiers, Inc. (NASDAQ: JOSB) has just announced its quarterly earnings report  for its Q1-2008.  Earnings rose by 18% to $0.53 EPS, compared to $0.45 EPS for Q1-2007 and compares to First Call estimates of $0.46 EPS.  Net income for Q1-2008 was $9.8 million, up from $8.4 million in Q1-2007.  Its total net sales increased 12.3% to $145.4 million from $129.5 million; comparable store sales increased 6.4% and direct marketing sales increased 0.2%.  First Call had revenues at $142.3 million.

As many of you know, this is one of the more heavily shorted retail apparel stocks out there.  As of May 15, it had 13.558 million shares listed in the short interest.  Shares are now up 8% at $29.50 after the news.  That was 14.57 days to cover, but was lower than some other recent readings. 

That is still plenty of shares to send short sellers scrambling. As far as garnering any guidance, it has a conference call late tomorrow morning.

Jon C. Ogg
June 4, 2008

Posted on: June 4, 2008 – 12:46 pm in Apparel, Earnings, Retail,

Jos. A. Bank Swarmed With Short Sellers (JOSB)

When most people think of Jos. A Bank Clothiers Inc. (NASDAQ: JOSB), they think about conservative apparel for men’s suits, sports coats, slacks, and dressy-casual attire.  It has been around for what seems forever and it targets more traditional clothing that isn’t out of fashion by the next season.  But in the world of stock investing, short sellers are almost always active in the stock for a myriad of reasons.

We did a screen in the wee hours of short interest growth in stocks, and for some reason Jos. A. Bank Clothiers just didn’t jump out in the screen.  It should have.  A reader inquired as to why it wasn’t included in the screen.  Usually we go for more active and more widely held stocks, but after looking at this one it’s a pretty amazing number.

The short interest was very high already at the end of February with 11.03 million shares listed in the short interest, and that was up from more than 10.7 million shares in mid-February.  But the March 14 short interest was just astounding with 15.19+ million shares being listed in the short interest.  NASDAQ cited that based upon about 900,000 per day, that is a day to cover ratio of 16.86.  A quick look at Google Finance indicates a float of roughly 18.17 million shares in the float, which is right in line with what the company lists on its own fully diluted as 18.18 million shares.

So 83.5% of the shares outstanding are short.  The company had already issued preliminary earnings back on February 7 for its it full fiscal 2007 numbers.  Now the company is on a quarterly sales results releasing basis.  This stock has been hit by short sellers throughout the years, but shares over the last year have fallen from $45 to under $25 now.  Shares are actually at the bottom of what would be a 3-year trading range.

It is hard to know what all these short sellers are expecting to come out of the company.  Maybe it is more cautious on sales expectations due to a stretched consumer, maybe it is that they are expecting a weakening balance sheet due to credit or due to merchandise mix.  Maybe they are expecting even worse.  When you see a short interest that is this large of a percentage of the float it’s hard not to scratch your head.  50% of a float being short is giant, but more than 80% is off the charts.

Options are pricey as well.  An at-the-money straddle as a bet on volatility with an April expiration would cost more than $4.30 currently.  That’s the sort of volatility pricing you usually see on a biotech stock ahead of an FDA review.

If this company issues any news that is good or just not so bad, calling the short covering action here as being "Spring-Loaded" would be an understatement.  Unfortunately the analyst coverage on this stock is rather thin and analyst estimates aren’t uniform.  Seeing short interest this large is almost never without reason.  But you also rarely see this much of a float as being short.

If we get any word out of the company, we’ll follow up on this one.

Jon C. Ogg
March 27, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: March 27, 2008 – 2:42 pm in Apparel, Short Interest,

Pre-Market Stock News (June 11, 2007)

(ADLR) Adolor said a complete response to the POI ‘Approvable’ Letter now targeted for 3Q 2007.
(ALXN) Alexion Pharm says studies show efficacy and safety of it’s Soliris in broad population of PNH patients in Phase III studies examining Soliris for the treatment of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria.
(BYBI) Backyard Burgers agrees to be acquired for $6.50 cash per share.
(CHINA) CDC Corp making a gaming company acquisition.
(CSGS) CSG Systems is paying $23.5M cash to acquire private ComTec.
(CUP) Peru Copper gets a friendly takeover offer from Aluminum of China.
(EME) EMCOR raised guidance and announced a 2-1 stock split.
(ENDO) Endo pharmaceuticals’ FROVA Phase III study data showed short-term prevention treatment reduces frequency and severity of menstrual migraine.
(ERIC) Ericsson in GSM expansion pact with China Mobile.
(GERN) Geron says research indicates its embryonic stem cell based therapy for spinal cord injury evades direct attack response by the human immune system.
(GOOG) Google announced search and ad pact with Sina in China.
(GOL) Gol Intelligent Airlines said Continental will sell its tickets for travel to Brazil and South America.
(IBM) IBM paying close to $750 million to acquire Telogic AB in Sweden.
(IMCL) Imclone said FDA accepted and granted priority review of ERBITUX sBLA for overall survival in patients with advanced colorectal cancer.
(JOSB) Jos. A. Bank $0.45 EPS vs $0.42e.
(MDVN) Medivation’s Dimebon maintains statistically significant benefit on all five efficacy endpoints in Alzheimer’s disease after one year of therapy
(NGA) North American Galvanizing trades ex-split to reflect a 3-2 stock split.
(NRMX) Neurochem presents update on Alzhemed, but said that no predictions or conclusions can yet be made regarding the outcome of the Phase III study.
(OI) Owen-Illinois is selling its plastics unit to rexam for $1.8 Billion.
(OSUR) OraSure received a CE mark of approval from the EU for its OraQuick rapid HIV test.
(PRGS) Progress Software added one of the Dow Jones news feeds to its algorithmic trading platform.
(PRW) Pro-Pharmaceutical submits data to begin a 505B2 filing with FDA for new formulation of Irinotecan for potential cancer treatment indications.
(RIMG) Rimage announced a $6.5M order from new major national retail customer.
(SINA) Sina in strategic search and ad partnership with Google in China.
(TRLG) True Religion CEO reduced holdings of 2.3 million shares in a private placement.

Jon C. Ogg
June 11, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: June 11, 2007 – 6:48 am in Pre-Market Activity, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Not All May Retail Stores Were Weak (COST, KSS, JWN, JOSB, SKS, ZUMZ, PSUN, SHRP)

Despite an earnings warnings out of Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) earlier this week and despite some perceived softness at Wal-Mart (WMT), there were actually some retail winners that posted strong same-store-sales gains above expectations for the month of May.  Here is a sample of some that beat the mark:

Costco (COST)         +7.0% vs. +5.6% est.
Jos. A. Banks (JOSB)     +13.5% vs. +4% est.
JW Nordstrom (JWN)     +6.3% vs. +2.6% est.
Kohl’s (KSS)         +10.5% vs. +6.3% est.
Pacific Sunwear (PSUN)  +6.4% vs. +1.9% est.
Saks (SKS)         +37.9% vs. +14% est.
Zumiez (ZUMZ)         +11.2% vs. +7.3% est.

Sharper Image (SHRP) did not do well on the surface with same-store-sales coming in at -8%, but when you take into consideration the steady double-digit declines and that the First Call estimate was looking for -13.8% then this isn’t quite so bad.  As we have noted on many occasions, sometimes Wall Street will reward disparaged companies that merely do ‘LESS BAD’ than they have in prior periods.  Shares are down more than 1% on very thin volume and somehow shares have managed to come back up close to 52-week highs, so we won’t be looking for a major run today.

Jon C. Ogg
June 7, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: June 7, 2007 – 8:43 am in Retail, , , , , , , ,

Pre-Market Stock News (June 7, 2007)

(A) Agilent reiterated guidance after completing Stratagene buyout.
(ADCT) ADC Telecom trading up 3% after posting $0.35 EPS vs $0.24 estimates.
(ANN) Ann Taylor May s-s-s -4.6% versus -3.1% estimate.
(ATVI) Activision will take $66.7 million non-cash and pre-tax charge for options back-dating.
(BEBE) Bebe Stroes May s-s-s -3% versus -2.8% estimate.
(BHI) Baker Hughes rig count rose 23 to 1,007 versus April and up from 920 in May 2006.
(BMET) Biomet’s private equity buyout raised to $46.00.
(CALL) CallWave announced the ‘industry’s first’ Visual Voicemail gadget for Google Personalized Homepage.
(CHINA) CDC Corp. appointed two new directors.
(COST) CostCo s-s-s were +7% in May, above 5.5% estimates.
(DJ) Dow Jones may have some interest from owner of Philadelphia Inquirer.
(DSCO) Discovery Laboratories initiated a Phase II clinical trial evaluating the use of Surfaxin in children up to two years of age suffering from Acute Respiratory Failure.
(ESLT) Elbit Systems awarded $110 million order by Thales UK to provide ISTAR capability for UK armed forces.
(FINL) Finish Line guided Q1 earnings below estimates and now sees a loss.
(HGSI) Human Genome Sciences shows positive final results Of Phase 2b trial of Albuferon
(IDEV) Indevus Pharmaceuticals reports positive data from Phase III NEBIDO trial for development for the treatment of male hypogonadism.
(INFN) Infinera Corp. IPO priced 14M shares at $13.00, above the 410.00 to $12.00 range.
(IMMC) Immunicon has released highlights from podium presentations made at ASCO meeting.
(JOSB) Jos. A. Banks may s-s-s +13.5% versus +4% estimate.
(JCP) JC Penney May s-s-s -2% vs +0.3% estimates.
(JWN) JW Nordstrom’s May s-s-s +6.3% versus +2.6% estimate.
(LTD) Limited Brands May s-s-s _2% vs -1% estimate.
(MSFT) Microsoft has entered a cross license pact with LG Electronics for further development of current and future product lines.
(OPTT) Ocean Power Tech awarded a $1.7 million Navy order for its PowerBuoys.
(SFD) Smithfield Foods $0.34 EPS vs $0.34e; named new CFO.
(SHRP) Sharper Image May s-s-s -8% vs -13% estimate.
(UTIW) UTI Worldwide $0.18 EPS vs $0.16e.
(WMT) Wal-Mart s-s-s +1.1% vs 1.2% estimate; sales were +1.3% after fuel.
(YANB) Yardville National gets $35.00 buyout from PNC.

Jon C. Ogg
June 7, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: June 7, 2007 – 7:20 am in Pre-Market Activity, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,