Companies Where Employees Should Lose Hope

[marmar]

from 24/7WallStreet:




Companies Where Employees Should Lose Hope
Posted: September 19, 2011 at 6:25 am


Some companies become so badly damaged because of changes in the competitive markets or due to poor management decisions that their employees lose hope. This may be due to the fact that they believe the corporations that they work for have little future, or that they will be laid off as their employers try to save these corporations.

......(snip)......

1. Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) recently released earnings and they were much worse than Wall St. expected. Net income fell to $177 million, or EPS of $0.47, for the quarter ended Aug. 27, down from $254 million, or EPS of $0.60, last year. Analysts expected EPS of $0.52, according to a survey by FactSet. Best Buy dropped its forecast for the balance of the year. It took the action because of concerns about TV and phone sales, along with worry about the economy. Best Buy has had a string of earnings failures, due primarily to its failure to do well online. Best Buy recently said its website would carry items from third-party stores to expand its attraction to shoppers. This did nothing to improve the perception that investors have of the company. Fitch downgraded Best Buy in June. The company’s shares are off 30% in the last year. Shares of rival Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) are higher by 60% for the same period

2. Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) posted earnings recently that show its sharp decline has accelerated. Several analysts now believe the RIM BlackBerry smartphone will be no more than a “niche” product in a market it controlled almost completely four years ago. The bad earnings news took shares down from $29.54 to $23.93 in one day. RIM’s stock is off almost 50% in the past year, while shares in rival Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) are higher by more than 40%. RIM shipped only 200,000 units of its PlayBook tablet PC last quarter. Expectations had been for a number more than three times that. RIM revenue fell by 10% in the most recent period to $4.2 billion — a horrible situation for a company that was one of the most well-known growth stories for five years. EPS fell to $0.63 from $1.46. The consensus among the media and Wall St. is that RIM has almost no chance to recover. The company has already started to cut costs. It said in July it would lay off 10.5% of its workforce.

3. Talbots (NYSE: TLB) shares traded above $17 in May a year ago. They now trade at $3 after dipping to $2.25 recently. After the company released earnings two weeks ago, research firm Sterne Agee downgraded the stock to “neutral” from “buy.” And the retailer posted results that were worse than expected. The corporation’s quarterly loss from continuing operations was $37.4 million, or $0.54 per share, compared to last year’s income from continuing operations of half a million, or $0.01 per share. The failing retailer said it expects to close about 110 stores in total, including 15 to 20 consolidations, through fiscal 2013. The corporation’s chief creative officer, Michael Smaldone, was fired as earnings were announced. Oddly, Talbots did not have a replacement when it took this action. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://247wallst.com/2011/09/19/companies-where-employees-should-lose-hope/#ixzz1YOrXLdrC

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. The USPS is hardly in the same realm as the other privately owned businesses.

[liberal N proud]

2. How to destroy someones Monday

Read a list of companies that employees should give up hope and seeing the place you work on it.

[FarCenter]

4. Being the last to leave a failing company is not a good career strategy

Failing companies often attempt to hang on to their best employees.

If you are good, get out early, and refuse to be used by a failing company.

[mmonk]

3. As people make less, retail stocks are not where to be.