Which of These Top 5 Department Store Stocks Have the Strongest Earnings Trends?

March 01, 2013

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Earnings trends are extremely important when evaluating stocks. At Wall St. Cheat Sheet, we view increasing earnings quarter-over-quarter as a simple way to gauge whether costs and the business model are stable. Then we like to analyze whether the company is outperforming peers in the sector. This is what we call the “E-Squared” investment analysis (‘E = Earnings Are Increasing Quarter-Over-Quarter’ + ‘E = Excellent Relative Performance Versus Peers and Sector’).

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Here’s your Cheat Sheet to how the top 5 department store stocks rank via earnings trends:

Dillard’s Inc. (NYSE:DDS): Current Price $79.99

Fiscal Year	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Revenue ($) in millions	6,988	6,227	6,254	6,400	6,752
Diluted EPS ($)	-3.25	0.93	2.67	8.52	6.40

Dillard’s showed a strong uptrend in EPS growth up to 2012, though we’re concerned that 2013 has shown a dip.

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Next, our CHEAT SHEET investing framework asks us to drill down to the recent quarterly data:

Quarter	Jan. 31, 2012	Apr. 30, 2012	Jul. 31, 2012	Oct. 31, 2012	Jan. 31, 2013
Revenue ($) in millions	2,007	1,583	1,525	1,486	2,157
Diluted EPS ($)	2.58	1.89	0.63	1.01	2.87

But we’re mighty impressed that Dillard’s set an earnings record for itself in the latest quarter, and therefore keep it on our watch list…

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