| Ticker symbol | Company | Price as of 8/05/03 | 52-week high | 52-week low | % price change last month | Revenue per share T4Q | % total debt/total capital |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DIRECT TO CONSUMER | |||||||
| FLWS | 1-800-Flowers.com | $9.07 | $10.90 | $4.75 | 11.1% | $8.18 | 11.3% |
| BL | Blair Corp. | 21.68 | 25.45 | 18.25 | 1.5 | 71.69 | 6.1 |
| CWTR | Coldwater Creek | 14.11 | 18.32 | 7.97 | 30.3 | 29.74 | 0.0 |
| HNV | Hanover Direct | 0.23 | 0.35 | 0.16 | (14.3) | 3.26 | 45.8 |
| JILL | J. Jill Group | 14.11 | 26.71 | 9.51 | (15.9) | 18.22 | 9.8 |
| MBAY | MediaBay | 0.79 | 3.70 | 0.64 | 8.3 | 3.38 | 57.5 |
| SPGLA | Spiegel | 0.05 | 1.20 | 0.05 | (26.7) | 22.53 | 466.8 |
| DIRECT TO BUSINESS | |||||||
| BBOX | Black Box Corp. | $40.46 | $51.39 | $25.58 | 12.1% | $29.07 | 13.9% |
| CDWC | CDW Corp. | 47.35 | 56.58 | 36.30 | 4.5 | 49.61 | 0.0 |
| HSIC | Henry Schein | 59.32 | 59.75 | 34.17 | 11.3 | 64.82 | 22.5 |
| MSM | MSC Industrial Direct | 19.75 | 20.23 | 9.30 | 12.6 | 12.27 | 0.3 |
| NEB | New England Business Service | 28.75 | 32.00 | 19.99 | (2.2) | 41.39 | 52.4 |
| PCCC | PC Connection | 9.17 | 10.82 | 3.72 | 35.6 | 50.96 | 4.2 |
| MALL | PC Mall | 8.40 | 9.00 | 1.76 | 76.1 | 83.09 | 39.4 |
| PFP | Premier Farnell | 7.40 | 7.80 | 4.25 | 4.8 | 7.84 | 74.9 |
| SCHS | School Specialty | 26.25 | 30.97 | 17.02 | (1.7) | 40.08 | 52.1 |
| SSPY | Sport Supply Group | 1.86 | 2.10 | 1.30 | (0.5) | 11.50 | 31.6 |
| TESS | Tessco Technologies | 7.50 | 13.09 | 6.11 | 10.9 | 61.00 | 20.8 |
| ZONS | Zones | 1.00 | 1.28 | 0.60 | 1.1 | 31.14 | 0.7 |
| Sources StockVal, Bloomberg | |||||||
Winners outnumbered losers by more than 2-1 in July, with 13 of the 19 publicly traded catalogers tracked posting higher stock prices than they had the previous month.
Ken Packer, managing partner of Waukee, IA-based Financial Advisory Partners, who tracks the stocks for Catalog Age, credits “slowly improving economic news regarding business spending and investment” for the gains among the business-to-business marketers.
PC Mall, for one, gained 76%, and fellow computer reseller PC Connection gained nearly 36%. While the share price of medical and dental supplier Henry Schein increased a less dramatic 11%, that boost brought it to within spitting distance of its 52-week high of $59.75 a share.
Three of the 12 b-to-b companies tracked saw their value slip. But none of them — New England Business Service, School Specialty, and Sport Supply Group — lost more than 3%.
Among the six consumer marketers tracked, however, the month was more contradictory. “The direct-to-consumer sector continues to struggle overall,” Packer says, “with market share gains and losses driving individual companies’ share prices.”
Women’s apparel cataloger/retailer Coldwater Creek, for instance, enjoyed a 30% lift in share price. But multititle mailer Spiegel, still mired in Chapter 11, lost nearly 27% of its value, ending at a 52-week low of $0.05 a share. Overall, the seven consumer stocks gained a median 2.7%, compared with the median 10.3% increase enjoyed by the b-to-b stocks.