- Right ahead of the third quarter's earnings, Bank of America Securities downgraded The Aaron's Company ( NYSE: AAN ) to underperform.
- The research firm said "Ahead of lease-to-own 3Q earnings, we are downgrading Aaron's ( AAN ) to underperform given our view that the financial health of the subprime consumer and their demand for big ticket items has worsened over the past several months. For AAN, this will likely result in lower foot traffic, lower collections and higher write-offs."
- Price objective is lowered by BofA to $6.50 from prior $7 on AAN stock.
- "BrandsMart segment guidance is likely to be cut", added investor in a research note issued on Monday. "We're especially cautious on AAN's BrandsMart segment, a ten-store, big box consumer electronics retailer that AAN acquired for $230M. AAN maintained guidance for this segment in 2Q earnings and now a cut appears overdue as demand has significantly worsened since April."
- BofA analyst, however, maintains its estimate for PROG Holdings ( PRG ), citing trade-down from credit tightening to be meaningful tailwind in time.
- AAN shares fell 11% to trade at $7.78 on Monday and don over 70% in past 1-year performance; PRG stock is up 1.4% .
- Seeking Alpha Quant Rating system gives Sell rating to AAN which sets the stock analysis stand apart from Wall Street's Buy.
- On Oct. 13, SA Quant System issued a warning stating that AAN is at high risk of performing badly due to declining growth and decelerating momentum when compared to other Consumer Discretionary stocks.
- Aaron's (NYSE: AAN ) is scheduled to announce Q3 earnings results on Monday, October 24th, after market close. See full preview here.
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Aaron's Company downgraded at BofA over BrandsMart guidance likely cut