Blair Corp, a company in my portfolio, announced second quarter earnings today. They were disappointing, but not as disappointing as reported by bizjournals.

“Blair Corp. swings to loss” is the title of the article. While dramatic, it’s completely wrong.

Blair Corp., a catalog clothing retailer and direct marketer, reported a loss in the second quarter as sales fell nearly 5 percent.

False. They reported a profit of $233,000 in the second quarter.

Blair said its second-quarter results were negatively impacted by the sale of its credit portfolio and last August’s stock buyback of 4.4 million shares.

Not true. The buyback doesn’t affect the operating results. If anything, they made the reported results look better than they really are. The stock buyback reduced the amount of outstanding shares by about one-half, so the reported earnings-per-share (EPS) results are about twice what they would have been without the buyback.

None of this is to deny the fact that Blair’s results were terrible and that the stock price has been even worse. I’m a little appeased by the fact that web sales increased by about 18% versus last quarter. Perhaps a few smart minds will start pursing the web angle as the wave of the future!