Timberland Co. (NYSE: TBL), manufacturer of outdoor apparel and footwear, reported a 33% drop in revenue back in February, due mainly to a decline in its sales of boots and children's footwear. Seacoastonline.com reported, excluding restructuring costs, the company stated that it earned 52 cents per share in its fourth quarter. That earnings report came in one cent higher than the results expected by analysts polled by Thomson Financial. The company is currently in the process of dual share buy-back plans, initially involving over 12 million shares of it's Class A Common Stock.

While the company has experienced tough times in the marketing of outdoor shoes and boots, the manufacturer reported an increase of approximately 3% in its sales of accessories and apparel, which includes its strong SmartWool socks line. While the company has weathered a drop in domestic same-store sales of more than 9%, Seacoastonline.com reported that sales for the company declined only 5.5% globally in the fourth quarter. Careful watch on the economy might expose this stock as a nice quick pick in the event of a retail turnaround. Timberland is working to revitalize sales by applying additional new focus on footwear aimed at the food service, health care and hospitality industries.

Timberland is currently trading at approximately 50% off its 52-week high of $27.76 per share.

Gary Sattler is a freelance blogger and does not knowingly hold positions in the companies he blogs about.

Timberland Co. sees 14% drop in shoe sales and buys back shares originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Just call it the "half a loaf is better than none" or "the glass is half-full" earnings quarter, or... well you get the point.

Wall Streets' analysts expect earnings growth from S & P 500 companies to slow in the second quarter, but that doesn't mean that there won't be stand-out sectors.

For example, energy companies are expected to benefit from elevated oil prices, barely-adequate gasoline refinery capacity, and solid demand for petroleum-based products.

Also, the industrial and technology sectors are expected to fair well: the industrials boosted by continued strong global growth, the techs aided by corporate information technology spending.

On the downside, likely to post sub-par earnings results include the auto and housing companies: U.S. automakers are battling operational restructuring and a slowdown in consumer spending, while the housing sector continues to correct, due to a large supply of unsold homes, rising interest rates, and subprime loan defaults.

Market-wide, analysts expect S & P 500 companies to post Q2 year-over-year earnings growth of 4.4%, according to Thomson Financial. If that sounds like a modest slowdown compared to the double-digit earnings growth prior to 2007, you're right, and Wall Street has, accordingly, "lowered the earnings expectations bar" for this quarter. Hence, in general, companies that fail to exceed analysts' earnings estimates by 10% are not likely to face as harsh a treatment by investors as they would in quarters past, when the earnings expectations bar was higher.

Still, given the strong correlation between earnings growth and stock prices, lowered expecations or not, this quarter's earnings performance will provide investors with a telling data point regarding whether there's fundamental evidence to drive stock prices higher, and by extension, to continue the market's bull run of 2007.

Q2 earnings season: modest expectations for S & P 500 companies originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In a sign of the increasing importance of high-end financial blogs, Reuters Group Plc (NASDAQ: RTRSY) is starting a new network of the sites. Or, it could be that the Reuters business development people have down time because of its upcoming purchase by Thomson Corp. (NYSE: TOC).

The offer that Reuters is making to a number of high-end blogs is that it will link to the participating sites from Reuters.com, offer free access to selected Reuters Headlines (RSS or Headline Wizard) and Reuters Video Player to publish Reuters News, and get 30% of an advertising program that the big financial services company will manage.

In return, each blog agrees to execute contracts with comScore and NetRatings to assign its traffic to Reuters.com. NetRatings ranks Reuters.com as the No.7 financial website with unique visitors of 6.1 million in May.

Reuters may be trying to match blog initiatives at media outlets including FT.com, WSJ.com, and AOL.com.

Either Reuters has a very high regard for financial blogs or it needs to pump up its audience ratings.

Disclosure: 24/7 Wall St. was approached by Reuters about this opportunity.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a principal at 24/7 Wall St.

Reuters starts financial blog network originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.