Bulls and Bears: Quiet Amid the Storms

Ticker symbol Company Price as of 2/24/03 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 $6.49 $14.68 $4.75 4.6% $542 11.3%
BL Blair Corp. 22.97 26.80 16.85 0.8 561 6.2
CWTR Coldwater Creek 12.05 17.05 7.97 (3.5) 475 0
HNV Hanover Direct 0.21 0.46 0.16 36.8 466 43.9
JILL J. Jill Group 11.01 27.50 9.51 (13.5) 348 13.5
LVC Lillian Vernon Corp. 4.00 8.25 3.65 3.7 247 0
MBAY MediaBay 0.98 6.04 0.77 (17.5) 46 63.2
SPGLA Spiegel 0.18 3.72 0.15 (2.9) 2,973 466.8
DIRECT TO BUSINESS
BBOX Black Box Corp. $41.37 $55.70 $28.02 (8.4%) $631 13.9%
CDWC CDW Computer Centers 44.45 60.00 40.25 0.6 4,265 0
HSIC Henry Schein 38.59 57.73 34.17 (9.9) 2,776 28.1
MSM MSC Industrial Direct 17.82 24.36 9.30 (0.3) 816 0.3
NEB New England Business Service 21.97 29.31 19.99 (9.8) 549 52.4
PCCC PC Connection 6.64 12.90 3.72 23.3 1,192 5.1
MALL PC Mall 3.49 5.10 1.76 10.1 863 4.1
PFP Premier Farnell 4.99 10.10 4.25 3.2 1,065 74.9
SCHS School Specialty 18.97 29.94 18.30 (1.4) 860 52.1
SSPY Sport Supply Group 1.80 2.10 1.05 22.6 102 31.6
TESS Tessco Technologies 8.45 16.50 7.49 (1.4) 267 20.8
ZONS Zones 0.93 1.92 0.70 11.6 318 5.2
Source: StockVal, Bloomberg

The weather may have been stormy in February, but the stock market was relatively calm for publicly traded catalogers. Few of the 20 companies tracked for Catalog Age by Waukee, IA-based Financial Advisory Partners experienced dramatic gains or losses in stock value. And while 10 of the companies saw their share prices drop, another 10 watched them increase.

The greatest gainer was multititle mailer Hanover Direct. The stock price of the apparel and home goods marketer, whose catalogs include Domestications, The Company Store, and Silhouettes, gained nearly 37% for the month. Then again, when you consider that Hanover was still worth only $0.21 a share as of Feb. 24, that jump in stock price doesn’t seem quite so impressive.

Among the business-to-business catalogers, PC Connection and Sport Supply Group were the big winners, with each seeing their share prices increase about 23%.

While stock prices for four of the catalogers fell more than 25% in January, in February the biggest loss, taken by audiotape marketer MediaBay, was less than 18%. The only other company to suffer a double-digit decline was women’s apparel cataloger/retailer J. Jill Group, whose price per share fell less than 14% in February. The biggest loser on the b-to-b side was medical supplier Henry Schein; its stock price lost 10% of its value.