Travis Johnson

Bad Year for Chico's, but Worth Holding On to the Stock

Stephen, sorry I wasn't more precise in my characterization of Chico's year -- it's true, they did have a nice blip up in the year following their IPO, followed by a significant decline that may have outpaced this year's 50% decline (it's hard to tell from the historical charts, since the price has gone up so much that the early years are a flat line that doesn't emphasize the dip from a split-adjusted 60 cents or so to 20+ cents.

In some ways, I think this year is worse than those early years for Chico's, but largely because the company has grown so much larger and expectations are much higher, so that a mathematically smaller decline and "less bad" performance makes for a worse year, but that's all in your perspective -- when it comes to earnings and stock price, it's true that this was Chico's worst year in ten, and their worst year as a mature company, but not quite their worst year ever.

Thanks for catching that.

Cheers,
Travis