Banana Republic? Gap? or Old Navy?(Gap owns the other two) If you have, do you like their private brand names? such as gapkids, babygap, gapshoes, and gap, Banana and Old Navy? I have been doing researches on GAP stock. Its recent price is well below its fair value and its beta is almost 2. The free cash flow is still decent but its sales growth is just not there. Only Banana R. had a 6% growth in 2004. So far this year everything is either flat or down. With 3000 stores in the States, Japan, and Europe, Gap company has had less store traffic than other specialty retailers. Why they don't open stores in China? Maybe that was the major reason why their sales were down. Judging from 10 years equity price movements for Gap, I can tell I would have lost money for the year of 1995, 1996, 1997, and 2002, if I purchased its stock today at $17.65 per share. On the other hand I would have made big money in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and made some money for 2003, 2004 and 2005 (based on good timings) Here is the 52 weeks high/low in prices: $7.55/$4.41 for 95； $10.82/$6.22 for 96； $17.15/$8.26 for 97； $40.92/$15.31 for 98； $52.69/$30.81 for 99； $53.75/18.50 for 2000； $34.98/11.12 for 2001； $17.14/8.35 for 2002； $23.47/12.45 for 2003； $25.72/18.12 for 2004； and so far this year for 2005 $22.70/15.90. It is almost impossible to hit all the bottoms or peaks, but it is quite likely to get near bottoms and peaks
The company is paying down its long term debts, which is good and in July 2005 Gap made announcement that it would buy back its own stocks worth $500m, which was encouraging. However, after the old ceo was sacked and Mr. Paul Pressler, a Disney veteran, was in rein starting in Sept. 2002, Gap as a company has not made any exciting progresses yet. In my opinion 2006 will be a key year for Gap. It either makes it or break it.
My female employees have told me they love shopping at Gap or Old Navy； my son and his college friends have said Gap sucks. The young people prefer Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Ave.,Banana Republic sometimes and Neiman Marcus occasionally. My son also mentioned Abercrambie & Fitch, Brooks Brothers. For me, Wal-Mart is ok. ))
))