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  • Can Walmart Fight off Amazon?

    Published: October 23, 2017

    Walmart's stock has risen over 25% in the last 6 months.  This has been hugely surprising to analysts, with the company surging past most sell-side estimates.  The retail giant has recently been facing several well-publicized headwinds, which seem to be having to bearing on its stock price.   The...

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  • Heavy Wal-Mart Pressure "Breaking" Family Dollar

    Published: April 24, 2014

    We believe that this premium valuation is due to erroneous expectations of significantly improved earnings in future years through a successful turnaround, and perhaps more importantly, hope that FDO will be acquired by DG, WMT or perhaps even the target of a leveraged buyout. Acquisition risk is...

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  • JC Penney: So Bad, It's Good (Again)

    Published: January 23, 2014

    So Bad Its Good - JCP will stabilize and valuation will come back to reflect ongoing concern. JCP has seen unprecedented same store sales drops as it tried to change its image. This has ended and they have bottomed on the sales losses. If JCP can stabilize sales and margins then they would have E...

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  • KKR's Faith in Bauer Suggests Bright Future Ahead

    Published: August 22, 2013

    We have talked to ice hockey players who value BAU equipment at a premium and trust the performance (any feedback from players welcome). The equipment market in ice hockey is a rounding error for Nike et al. The market is roughly $650m in size. It is not worth allocating resources towards due to ...

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  • SumZero Top-Rated Idea: Long on Sears Hometown

    Published: May 24, 2013

    The initial taste in people’s mouths when they hear of a Sears’s spinoff is what initially drew us to the situation. Over the last seven years, many value investors have fallen into the “SHLD” trap hoping that the market will value the assets on a “sum of the parts” / liquidation value higher tha...

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  • A Hilariously Compelling Short on Amazon.com

    Published: February 01, 2013

    Let’s start with the base retail business. It reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live skit where a banker explains that his business plan is making change. ‘we’ll give you 5 nickels for your quarter. We can even give you ten pennies for your dime…How do we make money? Simple: Volume!’ Do you rem...

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  • This Is What Bill Ackman Sees When He Looks at JCP

    Published: November 29, 2012

    While 2012 has been a year of disappointment, there is still very much reason for optimism in the case of the JCP turnaround. While SSS and SSF have declined more dramatically than anticipated, management has succeeded on the cost cutting front and the new JCP, while still very small, has exceede...

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