Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS)

Sorry for those of you eagerly awaiting each and every post, I was forced to take a very brief hiatus for lawschool papers and finals.

I reread books. Not because I like to, but because I don't have anything new to read and put books in the bathroom so I have something. Because of this, I have read the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham 3 times, 1984 4 times, The Catcher in the Rye about 10 times, etc., etc. I am currently rereading Peter Lynch's book, Beating the Street. Not cover to cover, but selected passages. I am not recommending this book as an investment resource. It's not really that great for that, in my opinion. There are better options out there (drop me a line if you want to know my opinion). It gives some insight into stock picking, but more than anything he recounts his career. It's more for fans of investing, if there are such things, and I think there are (I'm sort of one of them, which is why I maintain this blog for fun).

Anyway, I wanted to share a couple of stats he gives, because they are the type that make people excited about stocks. I know of more impressive stats, but I didn't just read them yesterday. These stats are from Chapter 8 concerning the retail sector. I didn't check them, but I am confident someone did:

"An investment of $10,000.00 made in 1986 in each of four popular retail enterprises - Home Depot, the Limited, the Gap, and Wal-Mart Stores - and held for five years was worth more than $500,000.00 at the end of 1991." There are a lot more stats that tout retail as a potential moneymaker, bigger ones even, but I am going to stop with this one, because I think it is impressive enough.

Which caused me to stop and try to think of a stock that had a lot of potential for growth in the retail sector. I came up with Dick's Sporting Goods. I am not going to compare it's fundamentals to it's competitors, like I often do. I will say that I think they have more potential for growth than many other retail companies. They also started in the midwest, like so many companies that grow well. I like their forward outlook, and I like their finished product. If we go into a recession, retail will likely plummet, and I think that might be a good time to jump into the stock for the long term to catch some of its growth. Give it a shot. Hopefully in five years some guy will write a book saying that if you had invested 10k in Dick's during the 2008 recession, your investment would be worth 60k when you sold in 2012. Let's hope you bought the stock.