Hello everyone.
We are at the tail end of earnings and TickerMine continues to put out very interesting, but more importantly, predictive stories on a large range of retail and consumer companies.
Last week we posted a positive report on Liz Claiborne stores. We saw that 62% of our survey respondents were saying that business was better than the year before. Liz Claiborne reported earnings this morning that on an operating basis were much stronger than anticipated. The company did reduce guidance for the full year but we believe it is possible that those new estimates are now easy hurdles to cross if our surveys continue to the positive trend we have seen recently for Liz.
The more important issue is that of the move in Liz Claiborne shares. Many investors appear confused at the shares rise despite a reduction in forward guidance. That all has to do with “wall street” games and expectations. We believe that trends are improving at Liz and while the guidance was reduced investors likely to perceive that the business is stronger (or less weak) than they believed yesterday.
We highlight that following the trends at the street level and using point of sale survey data can help lead us down the right path and not feel baffled when company results are not what we expected.
Later this week look for good results from Kohl’s and maybe a weaker guidance report than expected from JC Penney. That is what our survey’s tell us at TickerMine.
5 months ago
TickerMine’s most recent survey of JC Penney stores finds that 66% of respondents report that “Women’s Clothing” is the top selling category of items in their stores. “Chidren’s Apparel” as a category was ranked by 9% as the top selling group of items. 40% of respondents reported that business was the same as last year at this time, while 14% cited slower sales due to bad weather. We alert readers to our view that reports of negative sales should be given great weight, as store employee surveys generally exhibit a positive bias. JC Penney employees identifed categories of merchandise with excess inventory in their stores. 17% of respondets each saw excess inventory of “Womens’ Apparel” category and “Jewelry and Watches” category. 11% saw Children’s Apparel in excess inventory while 9% saw bedding and furniture category as having excess inventory.
On March 12th, 2008 TickerMine published its 3rd survey on JC Penney stores. The survey data picked up an increase in respondents reporting excess inventory at the stores. TickerMine alerted readers to the fact that the level of negative responses was unusually high and to be on alert for weakness at JC Penney’s.
On April 1, the financial press began reporting stories like this:
J.C. Penney (NYSE:JCP) shocked the investing community last week when it lowered its first-quarter earnings guidance to 50 cents per share, down from 75-80 cents. This is really bad news, and it does not bode well for the retail stalwart.”
TickerMine data had served as a warning, providing an alert for investors to re-think JC Penney and what the expectations were for the company.
To access raw data points on companies like JC Penney and 100’s of others on a real time basis, become a subscriber
at www.tickermine.com
5 months ago
24% of Harley Davidson dealers in our March survey characterized sales as worse than last year, up slightly from our February survey (23%) and November survey (20%). 38% say business is the same, up from 31% in February, and 38% reported that business is better this year, down from 46% in February. The Sportster was cited as the best-selling model by 48% of those polled, jumping from 33% in both our February and November surveys. Other models mentioned in the March survey include the Road King (24%), Roadster (14%) and Soft Tail (10%). 86% of dealers polled were not sold out of any models. The remaining 14% were all sold out of the Super Glide.
This post on TickerMine was our fourth survey on Harley Davidson (HOG). This hit our site on April 2, 2008. Our four surveys on Harley showed consistently worse responses from Harley dealerships about the level of business for the motorcycle company.
Harley Davidson reported an in-line quarter in April but reduced guidance for the rest of the year well below any expectations.
To access raw data points on companies like Harley Davidson and 100’s of others on a real time basis, become a subscriber
at www.tickermine.com
5 months ago
In TickerMine’s survey of Lululemon stores we found that most shoppers spend over $50 per visit and that a majority of Lululemon store representatives believe that most customers are repeat customers to their store. TickerMine’s survey showed that 45% of customers spent $50-$75 per store visit and that 37% spent $75-$125 per store visit. There were no responses below $40 in our survey. When we asked Lululemon store employees what percentage of customers were returning customers 37% chose 50-60%, 29% said 60-75% and 15% of respondents believed that over 75% of store traffic was returning customers. In our survey it was revealed that 54% of respondents believed that tops in general were the top selling item (45% said tank tops) 23% saw pants as the best selling category led specifically by yoga pants. 68% of respondents reported that there were no issues with inventory shortages at their Lululemon location, while 28% did say there were some product shortages. Lululemon respondents also told us that 68% of customers paid full price for clothes most often. 23% of respondents believe that customers generally shop for and purchase the items on sale.
This article was posted on 3/31/2008 just a day or two before LuLuLemon Athletica reported better than expected results. What was great about this survey was captured in our headline “Repeat Business Strong” which came through in the company’s results as LULU management cited strong same store sales with the successful quarterly results.
To access raw data points on companies like LuLu Lemon and 100’s of others on a real time basis, become a subscriber
at www.tickermine.com
5 months ago
Cheescake Factory restaurants are reporting shorter wait times and smaller checks on average compared to last month. Tickermine interviewed employees of twenty-four Cheesecake Factory restaurants and found that the average wait time was less than 10 minutes for seventeen (71%) respondents. Twenty-one (87%) restaurants reported that the average check size for a party of two is between $20 and $50. Three (12%) restaurants reported the average check size over $50. Asked about their most popular dishes, employees reported a variety of entrees including Baja Chicken Tacos (8%), Chicken Madeira (12%) and Maple Bourbon Pork Tenderloin (8%). Twelve (50%) restaurants reported various chicken entrees as the most popular dishes and seven (30%) reported burgers and sandwiches as the most popular dish. Seventeen (71%) restaurants were surveyed between 10am and 3pm. Seven (29%) were surveyed between 3pm and 10pm.
This TickerMine report was published on April 9th, roughly two weeks before The Cheesecake Factory reported one of its worst quarters ever. This survey was the fourth consecutive published on TickerMine that showed increasingly short wait times and smaller average check sizes.
To access raw data points on companies like The Cheesecak Factory and 100’s of others on a real time basis, become a subscriber
at www.tickermine.com
5 months ago
In a recent survey of Buffalo Wild Wings restaurants, nearly 48% of the respondents stated that business is up over last year, while only 8% felt business is down. 28% saw no change. The average bill for two is just $21-$30 at 65% of the locations and $31-$40 at 20%. 56% mentioned the menu as the main reason to dine in a Buffalo Wild Wings, and the wings are by far the most popular dish, cited by 72% of respondents. The other main draw for customers is the ambience, with 32% of mentions. Most locations (60%) report that dinner is their busiest time and most locations (60%) are not close to a mall or other restaurant.
The above entry was posted to TickerMine on April 14th, two weeks before the company reported earnings. Those earnings were substantially ahead of expectations. TickerMine’s report was the third consecutive positive survey on Buffalo Wild Wings.
To access raw data points on companies like Buffalo Wild Wings and 100’s of others on a real time basis, become a subscriber
at www.tickermine.com
5 months ago
Hello everyone.
Some times people ask us why primary point of sale data is important. We believe that point of sale data is very revealing about product and company trends. Apparently the good folks over at 24/7 Wall St. agree.
In a herculean piece of work they called about 30 gaming stores and asked questions about Take Two’s new game, Grand Theft Auto IV. Good idea. What we find interesting is that they don’t provide the raw data behind their work, TickerMine does. They also will not do this survey next month to see how GTA IV is tracking, TickerMine will. They also will not tell you what the next big game will be, TickerMine does.
The purspose of this post is to try and show examples of other established information provides attempting to provide point of sale data to investors. They know it is important. They cannot produce it consistently and meaningfully across entire industries and they cannot maintain the research over time. The efforts of writers like the group at 24/7 are positive. They highlight the insight and value that point of sale data offers. TickerMine brings reliability, scaleability and deep meaning to a large univers of stocks and industries that investors can use to get dramatic informational advantages.
5 months ago
We are in the process of trying to prove out our concepts on Tickermine. We believe that point of sale trend data is a very important indicator of current and future business trends. This may seem obvious, but we’re getting resistance to this concept from the people who manage your investments. Shocking? Yes. Surprising? No.
You can review TickerMine articles for the past month and you will see we reported on two companies in the same sector experiencing two different trends. Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD) had very positive survey results and beat analysts estimates when they reported earnings on April 29th. The Cheesecake Factory (CAKE) showed weakening survey results in our surveys and the company reported dissapointing results when they reported on April 24th.
The broader trend in casual dining is down. This has been widely reported. What is powerful about the data on TickerMine in our view is that we have seen our survey data be positive and negative in this environment and our survey’s seem to help identify which is which on a specific company by company basis. We believe this predictive insight is powerful for investors.
We don’t want to be seen as “cherry-pickers” here so we’ll point out some other interesting work appearing now on TickerMine. We have posted a suvey on Bed Bath and Beyond (BBBY) today that is very negative with almost half the respondents seeing business as “worse” than last year. Our survey’s tend to have a positive bias to them, so this high concentration of negative answers suggests that the impact of the economy at BBBY could be severe.
5 months ago
Still Monday morning here in San Francisco. Post number 3. Not unusual for us on the activity side. Our PR team wondered if we could post once a week. Once a week? I think we can clear that hurdle.
We are beginning to reach out to others in the market who we think add value and frankly can add value on top of our point of sales field data. Our first target is Eric Savitz over at Barron’s where he publishes Tech Trader Daily. He publishes alot to SeekingAlpha too where we also post quite a bit.
Another site we like quite a bit but has been a little hiatus is No Turn on Red. They cover retailand branding over there and we believe they will find lots to comment on about our data sets on retailers and consumer goods companies. The Kohl’s post from this morning would be a good place for them to pick up again. We hope to have lots of interaction with No Turn on Red down the road.
We’ll highlight more great bloggers and particpants in the information industry who think are useful and interesting.
-Casey
5 months ago
Busy Monday for us here at TickerMine.
We have just deployed some new features that we hope you all will find helpful and useful.
First, we are offering a free trial of our premium Diamond Miner level of service for 30 days. This will let users see the full value of getting real time access to valuable point of sale data in detail. We are confident there is no where else to get large groups of point of sales data for so little cost.
We have added a calendar so you can see when new stories are planned to be posted. You can access the calendar here http://www.tickermine.com/events .
We have also added e-mail alerts for tickers of specific interest to you. You can set ticker preferences and receive e-mail alerts for reports on these tickers by clicking into you “account” settings. The “account” link is in the upper right hand corner of the page when you are first logged in to TickerMine.
We have added two additional new features that allow users to more precisely communicate with the TickerMine team. First, we now have a “Dig Deeper” link that allows users to request custom reports on tickers or sectors of interest. These reports will not be posted to the general site and are proprietary to the requester. The second feature is a “Feedback” link where you can tell us what you think about the site, request new names for inclusion on the site and can alert us to any other items of importance you think we need to hear about.
Finally, we have added RSS Feeds for the truly tech savvy. The RSS feeds provide Silverminer level access to content. You’ll have to come to TickerMine directly to get the premium Gold and Diamond levels of information.
That is quite a bit. If you have any trouble finding or using any of the new features please let me know and I will be happy to help out.
Thank you.
Casey Ryan
casey@tickermine.com
casey11572 on Skype
5 months ago
