Dick's Not Broken, Despite Stumble
By James J. Cramer
RealMoney.com Columnist
8/16/2005 9:03 AM EDT
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So, let's go over what I did wrong. First, I believe that Dick's is the best store in a tough neighborhood -- the sporting goods neighborhood. It's the premium place to shop and a regional chain that's going national, which means that, after the disappointment, it can still be bought.
Where I went wrong was believing that management had upped its game when it bought Galyans. When Dick's bought Galyans, it took numbers up, because it believed that Galyans stores would do better than Dick's stores. But they didn't. Dick's made a mistake, and I believed in that mistake.
Of course, that makes it my fault, not Dick's management's. I should have been more skeptical about their assumptions, but I have been such a believer in the model and in the stores themselves -- which are the nicest places to shop in the sporting goods game -- that I figured the worst that could happen was that the company did the number and then guided down and you could buy more.
Looks like the worst just happened. Dick's beat the number but lowered the guidance, which I now believe it will be able to beat, but so what? People will put it -- and, no doubt, me -- in purgatory.
So be it.
The stocks I have picked on "Mad Money" as stocks of the week have, overall, done far better than the market, and I've been on a nice hot streak of late. This Dick's breaks the streak. My bad.