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It wasn't that long ago that Wall Street was in love with Crocs, Inc (NASDAQ: CROX), the maker of the trendy slippers that took the world by storm last year. After going on a tear for most of 2007, the stock started to break down last November, and has been in a tail spin for the past 5 months.The company is going to be reporting its first quarter numbers tomorrow after the market close, and all signs are pointing to yet another troublesome quarter for the company. Earnings.com is showing Wall Street estimates of 10 cents a share, but that number does not really hold too much water after the company announced a much weaker forecast last month in its preliminary release.
Last month, CROX shocked Wall Street when it said that it expected to see a 5 cent per share loss in the quarter, and revenues falling somewhere between $195 and $200 million. After that news came out, the already troubled stock took a serious nose dive, and gave up around 40% of its value.
If you try hard enough you can remember the stock late last summer when it was trading above $60 a share, and moving fast towards the $80 level. I can even remember reading stories that were predicting that CROX would grow as big as Nike, Inc. (NYSE: NKE)! It sounds silly now... but last year all the indicators were strong, and even President George Bush had jumped on the bandwagon to sport a pair.
That was then, this is now, and the stock closed today's trading session at a measly $10.02. This is an 86.7% drop from the 52 week high of $75.21 that is set last October 31. You don't get to see too many stocks make such a dramatic move in such a short period of time.
The company is trying its best to support its stock price to some extent. Last month it announced that it would be buying back 5 million shares of its 82.4 million outstanding shares.
Will we get some good news tomorrow night that could help turn the stock's fortunes around? It is possible. The good thing about getting all the dirty laundry out of the way early, is that all the bad news is already priced into the stock. As long as the company does not do too much worse than they have already warned, the stock should not get beat up too much following the release. It will be interesting to see just how much the stock can rally even if good news is on the menu tomorrow night.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so the best way to illustrate just how hard the stock has fallen over the past 6 months, let's take a look at a 12 month chart on the stock:
What are your thoughts on CROX? Have you been using the recent stock action as a chance to get in and buy some cheap stock, or do you think the CROX fad is over for good?
Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.
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