S&W Stock Price

[RoyRNC]

Just curious, but has anyone been keeping an eye on the Smith and Wesson stock prices? I see that back in Oct 07 it was slightly over $20 then in January it took a big hit and has been hovering ever since between the $4 and $7 range. Any idea why this happened??

[Lazlo]

The same kind of economic factors that have hurt many other industries right about now. Several things have most likely factored in: Earnings and sales reports that missed the target estimates set by analysts, compounded by warnings issued by the company itself that they would not meet market expectations, as well as overestimating sales predictions early and ending an earnings quarter with too much unsold inventory on hand due to the slowing economy and shortened hunting seasons in some areas of the U.S. caused by unexpectedly abnormal weather, have all probably combined to hurt their bottom line. And once you start burning through cash on hand to stay in business and it's not balanced by profit, it just doesn't look good and the stock market will respond accordingly. As of March S&W had already depleted $21 million from it's own funds to cover operations.

So pretty much the same kind of thing a lot of other companies are going through right now.