Herman Miller's Earnings Results - A Contrarian Indicator?

With Herman Miller (MLHR) delivering standout financial results tonight, as well as raising guidance, I keep wondering the obvious: Is MLHR a contrarian indicator? After all, the last time Herman Miller was doing so well selling Aerons was at the peak of the last tech boom, so ... businesses are obviously buying lots of expensive chairs again, which must mean something.

Driving that point home, the MLHR folks went out of the way on the conference call tonight to dissuade people from thinking that this was purely an Aeron phenomenon:

And the other thing I would mention on the seating business that although our seating did increase as a percentage of sales, it wasn't just the on Aeron chair. We had a great increase in our other chair lines, the Celle chair, the Mirra chair; I mentioned the large project win we just had with Mirra, and then also our Caper chair. So it's much more broad-based then it's been in the past, showing that our investments in broadening that portfolio are starting to pay off.

Riiii-iight. That's what you would expect from them, if they knew Aeron sales were a contrarian leading business indicator.

Comments

[Paul Meisel:]

My time in corporate america says companies buy office furniture when they have too much money -- but I think it's more a signal of the second half of the up cycle than the top, in general.....

2006 Sep 22 08:01 AM