Christopher & Banks and the "CNN Effect" (CBK 2Q06 Conf Call Quotes)

Women's apparel retailer Christopher & Banks (ticker: CBK) reported Q2 2006 earnings results today. President and COO Joe Pennington addressed an analyst's question about softness at the beginning of September during management's earnings results conference call:

Roxanne Meyer - CIBC World Markets - Analyst

And then in terms of September....I was wondering if you could....provide I guess just a little more color on the flat comp whether it is -- whether you are seeing some company specific issues out there or macro issue that's maybe drove some of the softness in the first half of the month.

Joe Pennington - Christopher & Banks - President, COO

I think -- Roxanne, this is Joe. If you look at the first half of the month and if we look at the sales pattern, certainly whether you want to call it the CNN effect or whatever you want to call it, I certainly think that had something to do with it. Whether it is the combination of people staying home and watching disaster on television, or their fear of what it may do to gasoline prices or whatever it is, there certainly was some impact during those first days following Labor Day. Or around the Labor Day weekend that began to abate slightly afterwards, but still remained soft. And then probably by the end of the following weekend, began to tick up a little bit and grew stronger then as the month progressed.

(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)

CBK chart.