Thursday 9 May 2013

BKS - big jump, but still losing money

Barnes and Noble (BKS) soared on a report that Microsoft (MSFT) might be about to put in a bid for the Nook. BKS closed +24.5% @ $22.13, which was pretty close to the high of the day ($22.79). The daily candle however was a somewhat bearish black shooting star.


BKS, daily


Summary

We've seen this kind of crazy hyper jump in BKS before...and it didn't work out so great last time.

Check this out....from May'2012


Didn't work out so well there, did it?

A daily close under today's low of $20.20 would be the last warning that BKS will simply lose all the gains.


The real problem

BKS remains a loss making retailer. It has sales of almost 7bn a year, but they are still unable to make an operating, never mind an actual net profit.

see key stats @ yahoo! finance

If they do dispose of their Nook unit, then what then for BKS ? They made such a big deal of going into the tech-book arena, and now they seem equally desperate to get out of it.

As Schiff might say, they lose money on every book sold, but make up for it on volume.