Crocs Earnings Reaction Uglier Than Its Shoes (CROX)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX) has posted its fourth Quarter revenues rose more than 99% to $224.8 Million while its diluted EPS rose more than 73% to $0.45.  First Call had estimates at $207.6 million and $0.44 EPS.

For fiscal December-2008, Crocs reiterated its previously issued growth targets of 50% for the first half, and it expects revenues of approximately $1.16 Billion and net income per diluted share of approximately $2.70.  We show First Call estimates at $1.18 Billion and $2.71 EPS.  That means that the bulls are going to have to hope the company is merely under-promising so it can over-deliver.

Ron Snyder, President and CEO: "…We experienced better than expected sell through of our fall line across men’s, women’s, and children’s in each of our markets. To meet the higher than anticipated orders over the holiday period we delivered a meaningful amount of Mammoths by air-freight, which impacted our gross margin."

If you think we are critical of Crocs shoes being an ugly fad, you should see what we said about OLD NAVY after its president left today. CROX shares closed down 4% today at $32.08 ahead of results, yet shares are down another 12% at $28.25 in after-hours trading.  Its 52-week trading range is $21.68 to $75.21.  That low is from a year or so ago, because over the last couple of months shares only traded as low as $25.28 during the sell-off.

The truth is that this reaction is the initial reaction in after-hours trading.  By the morning, we could even see a recovery if the value investors manage to show any force.  In a slower economy and after a more than 60% cut in the stock price you would expect that at some point even a fickle Wall Street will learn to factor in a lack of upside in apparel fads.  This now trades with a 10.46 forward P/E if its own estimates for 2008 come to fruition.  Even if we think the shoes are ugly, this one is starting to look cheap on valuations if that fad just stabilizes rather than disappears.

Jon C. Ogg
February 19, 2008

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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