While the firm isn’t in the business of making shoes, it does correlate to footwear more than retail. During October 2012 to January 2013, FL (over a 21 day period) had a  solid and steady correlation coefficient of above 0.9 with footwear, while over the same period had a correlation coefficient ranging from 0.85 to -.35. The take away from this little exercise is that FL trades with the footwear sector and not necessarily in the retail sector (where Wall Street places them). FL’s depressed multiple, with respect to retail, could make invstors perceive FL is of value, but after the exercise above, perhaps it is prudent to compare FL to footwear.

The average forward multiple in footwear is roughly 14.8x and the median is about 13.9x. FL, at 12.6x  forward, trades below its industry average and median forward multiple. For good measure, the average forward multiple in retail is 19x. This is a slight discount.

 In the performance category of net margins, FL underperforms footwear. 58% of its footwear competition has higher net margins than it. Additionally; FL is below average net margins of 10.2%. FL’s management, however, outperforms the competition. The firm’s ROE is better than 68% of retail and better than half the footwear industry at 17%. Wall Street is expecting ROIC to grow 700 bps by 2014.

—
salerno.mark.a@gmail.com

The talking shoe has a Bluetooth capability that allows it to talk to your smartphone, so it can measure your daily activity. The speaker on the tongue is loaded with 250 pre-recorded phrases that encourage you to get active, bash on your laziness and even is designed to give you some attitude.

Having a Bluetooth capability that allows you to track your daily activity through your smartphone isn’t that new of an idea. Nike released the Nike fuel band, Nike plus and basketball shoes that all have this capability. But, of course, the band, chip and shoes didn’t talk to you as you were running down that trail or sitting at home on the couch. Sure, it might be a little creepy at first but Google seems to be banking on that you will ease into the idea…

The shoe was designed with Adidas, and currently has no plans to release the show to the market but is viewing the feedback of what people have to think of a talking shoe before they take further action.

Author: Peter Nitso

Twitter: @PeterNitso

pnitso@yahoo.com

Sometimes, I miss trades, because I am at a meeting, on the phone or away from my desk.  Every Morning when I wake up the first thing I do is turn on CNBC.  I watch to see the stocks that are moving in  pre-market trading.  I saw GMCR has been on fire on a possible short and squeeze.  So, then I went to my Unusual Options Activity scanner and noticed a trader bought 5517 GMCR April 55 Calls for $.96.  This was the biggest order over the last 10 trading days.  Let me show a breakdown of how much money this trader made.

Paper bought 5517 April 55 Calls for $.96
(Paper is an order from a hedge fund, mutual fund, retail bank, or BIG trader)
Risk: $96 per a lot
Reward: Unlimited
Breakeven: $55.96
Cash Outlay for this Trade: $529,632

Greeks of this Trade:
Delta: Long
Gamma: Long
Vega: Long
Theta: Short

On 3.11.2013, these Calls are worth $2.50, so lets breakdown this
trades Profits.

$2.50- $.96 * 100 * 5517=  $849,618

If a trader risked $1,000 on this trade and bought 11 Options they would have netted $2,500

If a trader risked $5,000 on the trade and bought 55 Options, they would netted $12,500

This is just another example of trading with the BIG money and Hedge funds in the BEST Live Trading Room http://bit.ly/108XTgh as I breakdown over 2,000 trades in a day and also tweet them on our Premium Twitter feed http://bit.ly/WmtfI4

By the way, SEC leave those HNZ traders alone.

Paper bought 1000 .OSX April 235 Puts for $3.60 (5.0 times usual volume) when stock was trading $243.22
Paper bought 800 MCHP March 37 Puts for $.47 when stock was trading $36.83
Paper bought 2450 FCN June 32 Puts for $1.325 (6.4 times usual volume) when stock was trading $34.46
Paper bought 3988 DB April 42 Puts for $1.15 (2.4 times usual volume) when stock was trading $44.07
Paper bought 214,819 EEM April 43.5 Puts for $.61 (2.7 times usual volume) when stock was trading $.61

Paper bought 4200 HALO June 7.5 Calls for $.65 (6.6 times usual volume) when stock was trading $.65
Paper bought 7596 HOT March 65 Calls for $.13 (4.9 times usual volume) when stock was trading $62.63
Paper bought 1300 END April 2.5 Calls for $1.70 when stock was trading $3.90
Paper bought 300 FSYS April 17 Calls for $.50 (6.3 times usual volume) when stock was trading $16.33
Paper bought 1627 STI July 31 Calls for $1.25 (3.1 times usual volume) when stock was trading $29.69

Paper bought 29,694 TJX March 30 Calls and Sold April 30 Calls for $.60 credit (10.6 times usual volume) when stock was trading $44.95
Paper bought 8900 DF June 14 Puts for $.20 (7.1 times usual volume) when stock was trading $17.68
Paper bought 1627 STI July 31 Calls for $1.25 (3.1 times usual volume) when stock was trading $29.69
Paper bought 7596 HOT March 65 Calls for $.13 (4.9 times usual volume) when stock was trading $62.63
Paper bought 6725 CACI June 50 Puts and Sold March 50 Puts (34.5 times usual volume) when stock was trading $2.05