Major Chains Take a 3Q Hit

You’d have thought that the July release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince would have been a tremendous boon to America’s bookstores, but the way the market works, all those revenues were already applied to the second quarter of the fiscal year. Three months later, things aren’t looking so hot. Earlier this week, Borders Group announced its third-quarter losses would be twice as large as predicted, causing Prudential to downgrade the chain’s stock from “neutral” to “underweight.” Now Barnes & Noble’s third quarter is turning out about as bad as predicted–but, with projected losses of just 1 to 4 cents per share, they aren’t feeling the heat nearly as much as Borders, where losses may reach as high as 20 cents a share. But The Motley Fool says don’t count them out yet…

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