For those if you old enough to remember a couple of former retail titans back in the mid to late 2000’s have fallen on hard times. ANF traded in the 80’s back then and made a nice recovery off the 2008 lows to move back toward those previous highs, but barely missed matching them. It has been all downhill since. AEO shared best of breed status back in the 2006-08 time frame with ANF as every teen needed to be seen with the products and huge logos that adorned their gear. Did the nation run out of teenagers? On a more serious note, both of these names reported earnings before the bell Wednesday and lets take a technical look at both of these names.
Lets get the “ugly sweater” out of the way first. ANF is now down more than 55% from its recent 52 week highs and lower by 29% YTD and 49% over the last one year period. Its dividend yield has sprouted because of that lackluster performance to almost 4%. The stock plummeted 15% Wednesday after reporting earnings and is now lower 19 of the last 27 weeks. I am not a bottom fisher and would prefer to play AEO on the long side, but volume was gigantic yesterday, easily the most powerful in the last year on a daily basis.