Newsgroups: rec.collecting.cards
Subject: Re: Stock Prices
From: surfette@netlink.cts.com (Pamela Stangland)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 23:20:40 PST
Organization: NetLink Online Communications, San Diego CA

rx84335@mcvax4.d48.lilly.com (BENVENGA MARK J) writes:

> I thought there may be some interest in this story from
> today's Wall Street Journal.  It is reprinted in part without
> permission.
> 
> NEW YORK - Baseball-card stocks were hit by the news that market
> leader Topps Co. will report its first quarterly loss in more than
> a decade.
>    Topps - which experienced strong insider selling last year - sank
> 31%, to $8.50 from $12.25, on seven times its usual volume.  Late
> Monday, after the close of the market, the company said that a
> "market contraction" would result in a loss for its fourth quarter
> ending Feb. 28.
>    The announcement sent shares of several other companies in the
> sports-memorabilia business south yesterday.  Among them was Marvel
> Entertainment Group, the comic book giant that purchased card 
> manufacturer Fleer Corp. last September.  Shares of Marvel, which
> according to analysts get half its revenue from Fleer, slid $3.375, or 12%
> to $21.75 on heavy trading.
>    "The speculative bubble has burst in the new cards," said Robert
> Lifson, president of Robert Edward Auctions Inc, a Hoboken NJ auctioneer
> of sports memorabilia.  "Speculators are not buying 100 cases and
> putting them in their garage, because they haven't been rewarded for
> doing that.
>    In the new environment, Mr Lifson said, "there isn't room for as many
> companies to put out as much as they do and to be profitable."
>    As reported in this column Oct 14, Topps president, John Langdon,
> sold all his 100,000 Topps shares in June and July of last year.
> Earlier in 1992 came sales totaling 628,860 shares by four other
> Topps insiders, including the chief financial officer and Theodore
> Forstmann, a principal in investment firm Forstmann, Little and Co.
>    Forstmann Little held a majority stake in Topps but distributed
> it to limited partners in late 1991.  All the insiders sold their shares
> at prices ranging from $15.375 to $19.  The stock began its slide from
> that range in December on disappointing third quarter earnings.
>   Authur T. Shorin, Topps chairman, said in an interview yesterday
> that Mr. Langdon had sold his shares to buy a house and that the other
> insiders trimmed their holdings for personal reasons.  While there is a
> shake-out under way among card manufacturers, he said, it will be the 
> weaker competitors, not Topps, that get taken out of the game.
>    (STUFF REMOVED)
>    After the Topps announcement, Shearson, Lehman Brothers analyst
> Edward Cimilluca slashed his earnings estimate on Topps to 75 cents a share
> from $1.18 this year and to 90 cents a share from $1.25 for the year ending F
> 28, 1994.  He also changed his rating on the stock to "underperform,
> high risk", from "buy, high risk".
>   (MORE STUFF DELETED)
>    Prices of three other sports and sportscard companies that trade over the 
> counter also fell yesterday on higher than usual volume.
>    Score Board, Inc was off $1.50 to $22.50.
>    In the sports card market, dealers estimate that prices are down
> about 10% on pre-1970's cards and as much as 40% for 1980's baseball cards.
> Robert Wynne, who covers the industry for Tuff Stuff, said the oversupply
> "has choked the goose that laid the golden egg".
> 
> Generally, I would say that there are a lot of companies out there
> that are in trouble for the 90's.  Many will go out of business sooner
> than any of us think.
> 
> Any comments?
> 
> _____________________________________________________________________________
> Mark J. Benvenga                          "Another Day, Another Dollar"      
> Lilly Research Labs                                                          
> (317) 276-8147
> Benvenga_Mark_J@Lilly.Com
> _____________________________________________________________________________
>      ***All Opinions, Whether Expressed Or Not, Are Entirely My Own***
>                                                   '--> necessary disclaimer

well what do you guys expect, after total dominance of the card market 
for 30 years topps finally gets a little competition and all but folds 
up.  The funny thing is that all I collect is topps!!!!!!!!!!

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