Thursday, December 9, 2010

Same Store Sales Irrelevant For Aeropostale










Disclosure: Author has a long position in shares of ARO


Anonymous said...

I am wondering, when you say: half of all public companies have an roe of 12% or better, where did you find this information? Is it from a screener? I always wondered what that would be, and where one could find it. Is this for US companies? I wonder what tangible return on equity would be. I am guessing that it would be higher.

I also wonder what the average annualized 10 year sales/share and EPS would be for US companies and for all publicly traded companies in the world.

I tried being able to see this from the's screener, but I am not sure if I can find this info from the FT.

Thanks for the great article!


Anonymous said...


been wondering-do you capitalize leasess for your calc of ROE? beside -i think the main reason the stock's down so much is the fact that the market beleive's it is reaching saturation in the states and that their buisness model will not succeed abroad like ANF.
also, ARO has been showing peak margins for the last quarters that most beleive will be unsustainable long-term.

love to hear your thoughts on that one

John P said...

Saj, this analysis, like others, is very interesting and illuminating.

The real question I have for you is: How do you find these gems? Do you pick industries and just start digging through the financials of every company in the industry? Do you use screeners to look for various metrics (ROIC, Price/Cashflow, P/E, ROE, etc)?

I would love to see a really detailed blog post on how you find ideas.

tscott said...

Good comment John P, i run ncav and net net screens all the time and don't come across the same stocks.

Saj Karsan said...

Hi Hugh,

It was a very rough estimate based on the universe of stocks in the Google Finance screener. Of the 3300 or so stocks, only 1300 or so show an ROE above 12% when you screen only for that metric.

Thanks John P,

I get that question a lot, so okay, I will take your advice and do a post on it soon.

Paul said...


If you are following our advice, I'd suggest you open up your own fund and let us invest. Just sayin' ;)

Anonymous said...

ARO is trading at a little less than 5 times equity, in my book nothing can justify such a price.

Saj Karsan said...

Hi Anon, Leases are not equity so they should not be part of ROE. However, I would include them in calculations of ROIC. Margins are higher than normal right now, but even if they come down to their average, the company is still very profitable.

Hi Paul, I wish I could! But regulations pretty much make that impossible at this point.

Anonymous said...

Hi Saj,

Isn't the ROE metric here sort of artificially inflated because of the company's large amount of buybacks over the last few years?

Not saying its a bad thing for the company to buy back shares, but how do you look at it as a new investor? The return the company is generating isn't 50% given the price you pay to enter the company.

Thanks for your insight.

Saj Karsan said...

Hi Anon,

As a new investor, what's important to look at is the earnings yield (reciprocal of the P/E), because to your point, that's what you're getting as a new investor. However, you still get to earn the company's ROE on its new investments (whatever it re-invests from its earnings), presuming it can get the same return as it always has (unlikely at 50%, but still possible at attractive rates)

Anonymous said...

Given the latest earnings of ARO the stock is getting crushed. Same store sales down heavily 7% this time. Profits have dropped. This company is going to collapse is what Wall Street is saying.

Given your long position, and the latest drop in price, do you as a manager double down by buying more of what you must now think is reallllly cheap or do you cut your losses?

Saj Karsan said...

Hi Anon,

Without giving away portfolio activity, definitely more likely to buy more than cut losses

another value investor said...


Looks like David Einhorn agrees with you. I couldn't resist to buy in today. Look forward to an update on this idea after Q2 results are released. :)