Jos A Bank’s Earnings

Jos A Bank Clothiers (JOSB), the most erratic stock on our Buy List, just released very good second-quarter earnings. Sales rose 12% to $119 million and EPS came in at 44 cents a share which is a nice improvement over the 38 cents from last year. Wall Street was looking for 42 cents a share.
Actually, breaking down the numbers, JOSB earned 44.49 cents per share. If they earned just $2,000 more, the number would round up to 45 cents per share.
I’ve always noticed a tendency for EPS reports to come in at a number just about 0.5 so it can round higher. There’s probably some research report waiting to be written here (grad students take note). I’ll give JOSB credit for not trying to massage their earnings higher.
All in all, this seems be a good report. I’ll have to dig through the numbers later. I added the stock at the beginning of the year and for awhile it seemed like a brilliant move on my part. The stock had been at over $48 and I was adding it at the year-end price of $29.35. By June, the stock had climbed back to $45. Since then, the stock has fallen all the way back to where it was. Fortunately, JOSB is doing well today.

Posted by on September 12th, 2007 at 11:11 am


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