After successfully trading the stock just weeks ago, Mark Skousen has moved back into Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), which owns the nation’s largest chain of bookstores.
In his High-Income Alert financial newsletter, the advisor explains, "This stock looks like a superb contrarian buy right now." Here's his review.
"Barnes & Noble has almost 800 stores in 50 states. It also owns one of the Web’s most-visited Web sites.
"Between its stores and its Web site, Barnes and Noble sells more than 300 million books a year. It also is a leading book publisher and the nation’s second-largest coffeehouse.
"The company also is making waves with its new electronic reader, The Nook. Barnes & Noble so far has been unable to make its electronic readers fast enough to meet demand.
"However, the stock has sold off recently due to management’s announcement that holiday sales didn’t meet expectations.
"Billionaire Ronald Burkle is a heavy buyer of the stock. He now owns more than 10% of the company, picking up $90-million worth of the stock in recent weeks.
"Founder and CEO Leonard Riggio owns 16 million shares, too. Roughly 48% of its outstanding shares are in the hands of insiders.
"Yet almost half of the float has been borrowed and sold short. In order to close out their positions, these short sellers must buy back all of these shares. That means any favorable development could cause a massive spike in the stock.
"History shows that when insiders and short sellers disagree, the insiders are usually right. After all, they have access to all sorts of material, non-public information that is unavailable to the short sellers.
"Plus, this stock is dirt cheap, selling at roughly book value, only 20% of sales, and yielding 5.5%. So, buy Barnes & Noble."
