Ascena Retail Group (NASDAQ:ASNA)

Opening stores, closing stores... More markdown prices. Cloudy in the short term and wishes for longer term

Ascena Retail Group's Justice has a "tween" clothing and toy store line with a great business model - mark everything up, sell everything at 40% discount, and then issue cute little credit cards of Justice Bucks which must be spent within a short time frame, prompting shoppers to do it all over again. Much like Kohl's -- only the brand appeal is much greater with young girls.

Double down that these guys are going to make some good money over the next two years

I calculate that this stock will increase by 14% in 2013....interested to know if my limited experience, leveraged with a overwhelming need to understand and learn, reading and re-reading, spreadsheet after spreadsheet ever changing as the hours go by are anywhere close. (....don't say "bless her heart"....I am too afraid to throw out the stocks that made me wonder if I've lost my mathematical mind...) :)

Cramer remains bullish on this stock.

Based on Jim Cramer 6/7/12 rec

ASNA has cleaned up its balance sheet completely. Great FCF numbers and strong growth. Assuming a smooth acquisition of Charming, there's still plenty of upside in this stock.

My kid and her friends love the brand

Ascena has a more fashionable, high value, customer service oriented strategy that focuses on three non-competitive niches:
Justice - tween (age 7-14) fashion specialties
Maurices - small market fashion (age 17-34)
Dressbarn - career and casual fashions for the working woman (age 35-54)

Justice is about to pass Target and is second to Walmart in market share in spite of higher prices.

Maurices leads its peer group in comp sales at 12%.

Unfortunately, Dressbarn is the laggard of the 3 with comp sales at 1%. Dressbarn suffers from a middle of the road price and fashion so it gets it from all sides. However, since it is also the smallest (16% contribution to operating income), Ascena is still an attractive buy.

I don't know much about this, but the P/E looks affordable, and Tom likes it, so I bet it can earn me some CAPS points.

TEENS NEED A GOOD PLACE TO SHOP

valueline rank = 1

I love Justice!

Made a boat-load in this when it was TWB. DBRN has the tween market seemingly locked-up for now with JUSTICE. Dress Barn stores are also good for today's more value-conscious shopper. Lot of potential for expansion and growth, hope management can execute.

The addition of Tween Brands will add to the bottom line. Very popular with several of my neices.

The Tween Brands merger will help DBRN's bottom line.

bull

DBRN will outperform the market over the next couple of months to a year.
- It’s P/E is lower than the majority of its peer group
- Over the past year, it has produced strong relative performance
- October 25th interim earnings were above expectations
- Although earnings for 2009 are expected to decline 14% … it is oversold

DBRN price direction and volatility are only partially the result of its actual performance. The strongest influence is the general perception of its industry right now. However, its overall financial quality is better than that of its peers. It has 95% institutional ownership because of these strong fundamentals.

Dress Barn Inc long term indicators turn positive and Thursday DBRN given a up side brack out with good volume and momentum turn positive,Its ready to go next level, For more information visite http://my.flyingstock.com/RSSDetail.aspx?id=399