#$odp

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Tesla (TSLA) – The electric automaker is set to report second-quarter results after the bell Wednesday. Analysts are expecting an adjusted net loss of 52 cents on revenue of $1.62 billion. Wall Street will be looking for an update on the number of reservations for Tesla’s Model 3 and any comments on the potential financial impact of its deal to acquire SolarCity (SCTY).

Etsy (ETSY) – The online retail marketplace reported mixed quarterly results, posting a loss per share of 6 cents on revenue of $85.35 million. Etsy reported that it had approximately 1.7 million active sellers and 26.1 million active buyers during the quarter. Etsy also raised its full-year revenue outlook.

Kate Spade (KATE) – Weak tourism weighed on Kate Spade’s quarterly results as the company lowered its yearly forecast and quarterly earnings fell short. Kate Spade now expects sales between $1.37 billion and $1.4 billion, down from its previous range of between $1.39 billion and $1.41 billion.

3D Systems (DDD) – The company beat Wall Street earnings estimates by 6 cents but missed on revenue, reporting earnings per share of 12 cents on revenue of $158.1 million. 3D Systems CEO Vyomesh Joshi noted, “We see clear opportunities for improvements in 3D printers and on-demand manufacturing services as we drive operational excellence and focus on providing reliable end-to-end solutions.”

Ryanair Holdings (RYAAY) – It was a record month for Ryanair Holdings as its traffic rose 12% to 11.3 million customers in July. The carrier’s load factor rose one percentage point to 96%.

Office Depot (ODP) – The company reported same-store sales fell 1% during the second quarter while sales in its North American Retail Division dropped 7%. Office Depot also said a strategic review led to a three-year plan with goals of accelerating opportunities in its contract channel, reinventing the North American retail model and implementing multi-year cost reductions.

  Back-to-school shopping can get overwhelming, especially if you have more than one child. Every student has his or her own distinct list of required supplies, and tracking everything down while staying within a budget can seem harder than Calculus homework. But never fear, use a little strategy and you might walk away with a few dollars to spare.

While shopping online is typically more convenient, it might actually save you money to go directly to the store in upcoming weeks. Many retailers want to get you in the door, and will offer back-to-school deals that are only available in-stores.

And of course, it pays to do some comparison shopping. You might walk into one store and find everything you need, but you’ll likely end up overpaying. All of the big stores like Walmart, Target and Office Depot post weekly ads with their newest deals online. Before you leave the house, compare the offerings to make sure you’re getting the best deal at every store. Stores will also have new deals every week, so if the price isn’t right on something you have your eye on, it might pay to wait.

And finally, before you head out to the school supplies battlefield check if your state has a sales tax holiday coming up. The tax exemptions can usually be applied to clothes and supplies costing less than $100 per item.

To help get you started, we scanned weekly ads from some major retailers. Here’s a preview of some of the best deals on school supplies for this week.

Office Depot

Few stores have more back-to-school deals than Office Depot (ODP). If you play your cards right, you could check everything off of your list in one visit! This week, a 12-pack of BIC ballpoints pens is 25 cents, a 10-pack of Crayola markers is 25 cents and a pack of college ruled filler paper is just $1. These are all limited to three per household.

As long as you spend at least $5, you can also get a composition book, a 3-pack of erasers, and 4-ounce bottle of Elmer’s glue for just 1 cent a piece.

If you’re shopping for a tween or teen, technology is clearly what they want. There are dozens of tablets and computers available, but at $229.99, it doesn’t get much cheaper than this HP Stream 13-inch computer.

Check out the weekly ad here:

Walmart

Walmart (WMT) is bursting at the seams with back-to-school deals. In the “super low” category you can get a 12-pack Crayola colored pencils for 97 cents, Elmer’s glue sticks for 25 cents, spiral notebooks for 17 cents, and wide-ruled filler paper for 82 cents.

There are also some impressive deals in the technology department. The Samsung Galaxy 9.7 tablet is just $199, and you can update your favorite student’s dorm with a Roku for $49.

Check out the weekly ad here.

Walgreens

Keep your children organized with seven 2-pocket folders for just $1, or help them brush up on geometry with protractors that are 3 for $1. Scan your Walgreens (WBA) card and you can also purchase a 10-pack of Crayola markers for just 99 cents, a backpack for $4, 10-pack PaperMate pens for 49 cents and 4-packs of markers and highlighters for just $1.

Check out the weekly ad here.

Target

Not to be outdone by competitors, Target (TGT) has a ton of great school supplies available for under a dollar. Excited shoppers can gram a 6-pack of Elmer’s glue sticks, a 10-pack of Crayola markers, sharpies, scissors, Post-its and mechanical pencils for just 99 cents.

Check out the weekly ad here.

Brittany Jones-Cooper is a writer for Yahoo Finance.

Read more:

16 states with tax-free weekends for back-to-school shopping

Low on cash? Now there is layaway for airline tickets

Miscues with Amazon exec may have doomed effort to show online giant won’t disrupt office market.

by David Marcus

The Federal Trade Commission's effort to block the proposed merger of Staples Inc. and Office Depot Inc. has been a rocky one. Staples concluded its defense on April 5 without calling a single witness. Diane Sullivan, Staples' lead lawyer and a partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in New York, said in her closing argument that the FTC had "failed utterly" to identify a single specific market where competition would be harmed by the $6.3 billion merger of office supply companies. Staples' gambit was very unusual and suggests its confidence in its case.

Arbitrageurs agreed; Office Depot stock jumped 35% during the 10-day trial, while Staples stock rose 8.8%. Those hikes reflected comments made by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington during the course of the 10-day antitrust trial, which began March 21. The judge was skeptical of the FTC's argument that the deal would harm competition in the market for sales of consumable office supplies to companies that buy at least $500,000 of such goods every year. He wondered why such large businesses couldn't look after their own interests and seemed more focused on potential harm - or lack of it - to individual customers than to large businesses.

And he criticized the FTC harshly on March 23 for suggesting that Prentis Wilson, vice president of Amazon Business, submit a declaration in the case saying that Amazon.com Inc. might not be able to compete in the market until early next year. Wilson testified that wasn't necessarily the case, and Sullivan called the FTC's behavior "very disturbing." Although it is standard operating procedure for antitrust officials to provide suggested language for declarations in these instances and the subjects are free to change them as they see fit, the agency never seemed to recover the credibility it lost in the eyes of the judge.

The difficulties the FTC faced at trial were so fundamental to the FTC's case that they call into question the government's decision to bring the case in the first place. At the most basic level, the FTC may have felt that it had to challenge what it saw as a merger of the nation's two largest sellers of office supplies-a two-to-one merger, in antitrust terms. But in 2013, the FTC decided not to oppose Office Depot's 2013 purchase of Office Max Inc.

The FTC often challenges so-called three-to-two mergers, but in that deal found that large customers "use a variety of tools to ensure that they receive competitive pricing such as ordering certain products." The FTC said in a statement on its decision not to challenge the about Office Depot's purchase of Office Max that smaller office supply players like W.B. Mason Co. Inc. "have demonstrated the ability to win large multi-regional and national customer contracts."

The FTC also found "little concern" from large businesses about that deal, an attitude the customers also took toward the Staples deal. (One inside counsel for a large company groused after the case that her company spent $40,000 in outside attorney fees answering the FTC's inquiries during its Staples investigation, an outlay in real money that wasn't justified by the theoretical savings that might have been provided by stopping the merger.)

The FTC came up with a very different view of the market in the Staples case, where it argued that Staples and Office Depot had an 80% share of the market as the FTC defined it. One key aspect of that definition was the FTC's decision to exclude ink and toner cartridges, which account for more than 20% of the companies' sales.

The agency said that companies such as Xerox Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Inc. often provide ink and toner as part of managed print services contracts under which companies purchase or lease printers and copies and receive maintenance on them.

Carl Shapiro, the FTC's expert witness in the case, said that managed print services companies have garnered a much larger share of the market in the last five to seven years. That may have been a defensible position, but Judge Sullivan was skeptical of it, which further undercut the government's credibility. Even had he bought the government's argument on the point, though, it suggested the dynamism of the markets in which the companies compete and thereby weakened the basis for challenging the deal.

The office supply deal faces a tougher challenge in the U.S. And arbs are still shaken from the last failure.

by Scott Stuart

The resolution of antitrust concerns in the European Union for the $5 billion merger of Staples Inc. (SPLS) and Office Depot Inc. (ODP) does not look like an indicator for the U.S. outcome, despite some similarity in regulators' concerns.

The companies announced Wednesday that they reached an agreement in Europe including an agreement to divest contract distribution business of Office Depot in the European Economic Area, and the entire Office Depot business in Sweden.

The merger has cleared other jurisdictions, including China.

The EC review focused on the effects of the planned merger on large business customers in Europe determining that the deal would result in particular competitive problems in markets for national contracts with large business customers in the Netherlands and Sweden. The focus of the Federal Trade Commission's objection to the merger in U.S. markets is similar.

The FTC complaint states that by a wide margin Staples and Office Depot are the primary vendors of consumable office supplies to large businesses in a two-player national market. Documents of the companies enforce the idea that on a national scale the two companies price against each other and that the merger would eliminate this competition.

The FTC process is scheduled to culminate in a hearing beginning May 10.

The companies have extended the merger agreement, which has renewed financing commitments, to May 16.

With the EC agreement, that antitrust authority said it cooperated closely with the Canadian Competition Bureau, which also has extended its antitrust review, and the FTC.

But the review in the U.S. is thought to be both specific to the U.S. national and even regional markets for large companies and not resolvable as easily as the EC market concerns. The companies' best argument before the FTC complaint is that the 2013 decision regarding the Office Max merger that the market is broader than the national big box retailers should prevail in the case of the Staples merger. The FTC does not seem disposed in this case to find that e-tail office supplies is a viable alternative for national corporate customers.

Staples has already offered to divest $500 million in assets to support a third competition and the FTC has rejected that notion as inadequate to maintain competition. A solution in the U.S. is not as definable as the EC resolution, an attorney said.

"You won't see an agreement akin to the EC plan in the U.S., this is going to trial and it'll play out there and be almost completely based on what Staples and Office Depot corporate customers have to say," an arb said.

Starboard Value Lp returns an estimated -1.85% for June 2015 - the fully hedged version returns -0.18%

Starboard Value generated a -1.85% return on their publicly disclosed long portfolio for the month ending June 2015, underperforming the S&P500 by 186 basis points (bp). On a hedged basis, the portfolio would have returned -0.18% StockAlpha over the same period. Starboard's StockAlpha reflects the return of the net return if each security in their portfolio was hedged with a sector ETF, such that the resulting portfolio was market, beta and sector neutral. StockAlpha in the Cons. Disc. sector contributed the most to StockAlpha during the month.

Positive Contributors to Starboard's Returns

Starboard’s position in Darden Restaurants (DRI) contributed the most to the performance of the manager’s long-portfolio during the month. Over the month of June 2015, Starboard's 25.2% position in Darden Restaurants (DRI) increased in value by 8.1%, contributing 2.03% (25.2%*8.1%=2.03%)to the long portfolios overall return. Looking at Starboard's portfolio through a fully hedged StockAlpha lens, the holding of Darden Restaurants (DRI) also provided the largest contribution to fully hedged returns. Darden Restaurants (DRI) returned 8.1% during the month compared to the Cons. Disc. sector, which returned 0.6%. As a result, after taking into account Darden Restaurants (DRI)'s beta relative to its sector, the position contributed 1.9% of StockAlpha to the Starboard’s monthly performance.

Negative Contributors to Starboard's Returns

Much of the drag on Starboard’s long-portfolio during the month can be attributed to the holding of MeadWestvaco Corporation (MWV). Over the month of June 2015, the manager's 15.7% position in MeadWestvaco Corporation (MWV) returned -6.8%, contributing -1.06% (15.7%*-6.8%=-1.06%)to the long portfolios overall return. Looking at Starboard's portfolio through a fully hedged StockAlpha lens, the holding of Office Depot Inc. (ODP) provided the most negative contribution to fully hedged returns. Office Depot Inc. (ODP) returned -6.6% during the month compared to the Cons. Disc. sector, which returned 0.6%. As a result, the position contributed -0.9% of StockAlpha to the manager’s monthly performance.

Overlap with other hedge funds

Summary

Staples looks undervalued on a revenue, earnings, dividend, book, and free cash flow basis relative to peers.

Staples has had strong price momentum recently, and stands to gain from the continuation of the current retail sector comeback.

The proposed merger between Staples/Office Depot looks likely to happen given that: Starboard is the activist behind it, internet retailers continue to capture market share, and the recent historical precedent.

We recommend Staples as a "Strong Buy", and expect continued outperformance in 2015.

A) Introduction

On Tuesday, a FT report came out saying that Staples (NASDAQ:SPLS) was likely to reject calls from activist Starboard Value to merge with competitor Office Depot (NASDAQ:ODP), sending the stock down nearly 6%. Whether you believe Staples will give into the activists or not, we believe that Staples offers an attractive valuation and price momentum. We will begin by taking a quantitative look at how Staples stacks up in a variety of different valuation and growth metrics, before providing qualitative analysis on the activist situation.

We should note that we take a quantitative approach to investing, preferring to focus our analysis on a certain set of metrics that have a strong predictive ability. Thus, we tend to analyze academic papers and perform historical back tests on different metrics before including them in our analysis. We will provide links to the academic papers we draw inspiration from as we progress through our breakdown of the stock so investors can see for themselves what we base our conclusions on.

B) Valuation Breakdown

We'll start by analyzing Staples' value profile. This is important to look at as "Value stocks (with low ratios of price to book value) have higher average returns than growth stocks (high price-to-book ratios)". Staples valuation profile is shown below:

Source

There are a few important things to note from this table. First off, Staples finishes in the top 40% of the entire market in every valuation metric shown above. Of these, Staples is most undervalued on a revenue basis with its sales yield of 213% being way below the Specialty retail (95%) and consumer discretionary sector average (55%). The company looks fairly attractive on an earnings and dividend basis, with its earnings yield of 5.65% and dividend yield of 2.89% both much higher than the specialty retail averages (3.24% and .62%). Staples also looks attractive on a book value (P/B ratio of 1.77 vs. group average of 3.93) and free cash flow basis (price/FCF of 23 vs. group average of 53). As shown in the link above, value stocks tend to produce significant excess returns, which bodes well for Staples in 2015. Overall, the stock is strongly undervalued relative to its group peers and we expect the stock to generate 7.24% of outperformance due to this undervaluation.

C) Growth Breakdown

There are a variety of different growth metrics that have been shown to predict stock returns. Most important among them is price momentum. Winning stocks keep winning, and losing stocks tend to keep losing. Staples growth profile is shown below:

Source

Rumors of a potential merger with Office Depot have sent Staples up 51% in the last six months, after it had started the year off weakly. This six-month price performance puts it into the top 10% of the overall market over the last six months, reflecting its newfound status as a market leader. As we detailed in reports on Best Buy and Kroger, retail stocks have been leading the market recently as investors capitalize on the expected increase in consumer spending due to cheaper gas. While Staples' big run has been mostly due to rumors of activism, it should benefit from the retail sector comeback as well. Overall, we feel that Staples is a "Strong Growth" company and will outperform the market averages by 6.11% over the next twelve months due to its growth.

D) Qualitative Analysis and Conclusions

We'll now supplement our quantitative analysis with a qualitative discussion of some of the major growth catalysts and risk factors that could impact the stock price in the near future. As we mentioned at the start of the article, Staples shot down the proposed merger between Staples and Office Depot on Tuesday, citing concerns over FTC approval. While this news sent the stock down 6% on Tuesday, Staples recovered half this fall over the next three days, showing that the market was still optimistic on a potential deal. Staples' fears of FTC resistance stem from the previously failed merger with Office Depot in 1997, in which the FTC cited antitrust concerns regarding "office supply superstores."

The FTC has relaxed this narrow definition now that Internet retailers like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) have taken significant market share. This is shown by their recent acceptance of the Office Depot/Office Max merger in 2013. The FTC knows that office supply stores cannot impose monopoly-like pricing in the internet age, and thus is likely to approve the merger.

Some Wiggle Room, Please

Lots of earnings reports out. Let’s go around the horn.

Staples (SPLS) and Office Depot (ODP) will, in fact, join forces. The duo announced February 4th that Staples will pay $6.3 billion for its rival, valuing Office Depot at $11 per share, a nice premium to its previous day close and relative to our fair value estimate. Management expects to generate at least $1 billion in annualized cost savings. Removing redundant overhead, streamlining distribution and carving out other efficiencies will be par for the course. We also think pricing will ease up a bit, though competition from Walmart (WMT) and Amazon (AMZN) will always be present.

We wouldn’t expect Office Depot’s equity to converge to the take-out price until the regulatory review is completed, likely before year’s end. Investors can’t forget, however, that regulators axed this deal in 1997, but that was a long time ago, and the competitive environment was much different. Shares of Office Depot are trading at less than $10 at the moment. We value them at $8 on an individual basis under relatively optimistic assumptions. The market is factoring in a meaningful probability of regulatory road blocks, at least at this time.

In other dealings, Pfizer (PFE) announced that it would acquire Hospira (HSP) for $17 billion, or $90 per share in cash. Hospira closed in the mid-$60s the day prior, so the target’s management negotiated a rather nice deal, in our view, especially in light of our estimate of its standalone value. Hospira is a leader of injectable drugs, infusion technologies, and biosimilars – large and growing categories. Pfizer estimates that the global market value for generic sterile injectables and biosimilars will be $70 billion and $20 billion, respectively, by 2020.

Pfizer’s management had been on the acquisition trail for a while, having been rebuffed numerous times from AstraZeneca (AZN). Pfizer would have paid up for AstraZeneca if the deal had been completed, and we think it has paid up for Hospira as well. Remember, whether an acquisition is accretive or dilutive to accounting earnings per share matters little. In assessing whether a deal is value-creative to the acquirer, one must compare the target’s standalone intrinsic value + the discounted value of future deal synergies with what the suitor paid.

Though Hospira’s growth markets are large and synergies can be had, Pfizer paid well over our estimate of Hospira’s standalone value. The deal price values Hospira at 35+ times 2014’s adjusted earnings of $2.40-$2.50 per share. That’s expensive for a firm growing the top line less than 10%! Should Pfizer’s board be shaken up? Are they being too lax with shareholder capital? The market seems to disagree with us. Pfizer’s shares are up on the announcement.

I like to pay close attention to the building materials firms as they provide insight into a great many other areas of the industrial economy. The #1 maker of gypsum wallboard in the US, USG (USG) reported mediocre fourth-quarter results, with net sales advancing 4% and adjusted net income advancing to $32 million from $22 million in the prior-year’s quarter. Management noted that all of its businesses are heading in the right direction, which we view as a positive data point for much of the commercial and residential construction arenas. USG has tremendous operating leverage in its model, and we think it’s worth paying close attention to. Shares are trading off on the report.

The largest producer of construction aggregates (sand, gravel, crushed stone and the like) in the US, Vulcan Materials (VMC) announced a rather robust fourth quarter. Total revenues advanced 11% thanks to a 15% increase in same-store shipments, to 4.3 million tons. The company’s average sales price increased 2%, despite an unfavorable mix, and its segment gross profit surged 40% in the period. Adjusted EBITDA of $172 was 30%+ higher than last year’s mark. Vulcan’s performance continues to indicate a construction activity recovery, though its shares are quite pricey at ~50 times trailing 12-month earnings. Let’s just say the market is expecting a continued strong recovery at Vulcan to assign it that multiple.

Let’s move on to the reports of a couple high-beta stocks: Michael Kors (KORS) and Under Armour (UA). Both continue to grow like weeds. Though fast-growing operations are certainly positive attributes, such dynamics create an added layer of complexity to the valuation analysis. What is the correct normalized revenue growth number for Michael Kors to use in Year 5 of the valuation process, for example? Is the firm’s correct normalized growth rate 30%, or is it 20%, or perhaps 15% is correct?

The reasoning for using a fair value range in valuation analysis is clear when it comes to high-beta, fast-growers. We can’t possibly peg the company’s normalized growth rate with absolute precision (nobody can), no more than we can predict the future with absolute certainty. We also don’t want to truncate upside potential, no more than we want to ignore downside risks. Thinking about valuation as a range of probable fair value outcomes, or a fair value range, is one of the most valuable approaches you can ever adopt. Being approximately correct in the identification of valuation outliers is the goal of any valuation process, not being precisely wrong.

With all of that said, the Street appears to be overreacting to Michael Kors’ conservative top and bottom-line guidance for the balance of its fiscal 2015. Market observers know that the future outlook always trumps the most recently-reported quarterly results (which are now history), but it’s difficult to truly be disappointed in a firm that is growing the top line at a ~30% clip, the pace of growth achieved during its calendar fourth quarter. Kors’ torrid pace of new store openings (114 net new ones in the quarter), strong e-commerce expansion (+70%) and 8%+ comparable store sales growth are driving such expansion.

The firm’s European growth story, however, is perhaps most impressive. Adjusting for currency, revenue generated in Europe grew more than 85% versus last year’s quarter thanks in part to comparable store sales increases of ~30%+. Very few, if any, firms in our coverage are growing their European operations that quickly. Diluted earnings per share is expected to be in the range of $4.27-$4.30, implying a ~16 times multiple on trailing earnings. For a company that is growing as fast as Michael Kors, a below-market multiple makes very little sense, even with its heightened risk profile. The company’s shares are trading below the low end of the fair value range, and we’re watching them closely.

Under Armour is growing at a similar clip. Net revenues advanced 31% in the fourth quarter, and the firm leveraged such expansion into 37% net income growth. The company’s apparel operations were helped by new offerings across training and hunting, and its footwear offerings continue to gain traction, up more than 50% on a year-over-year basis in the quarter. This is quite a feat given the dominance of Nike (NKE) in this area. Under Armour’s international net sales more than doubled and now account for nearly 10% of the business. Diluted earnings per share for 2014 came in at $0.95, and the firm is targeting operating income growth of 12%-15% in 2015. Consensus is looking for earnings per share just north of $1.20 in 2015, putting Under Armour’s earnings multiple at 60+ times. That’s way too pricey for our taste!

Similar fickle customer bases, similar growth products, and similar intense competition, yet the market assigns Under Armour a multiple (60x) that is ~4 times that of Michael Kors (16x). I think you can see why we think Under Armour is overvalued while Micheal Kors is undervalued. Take a look at their 16-page reports. The market sometimes has a difficult time reconciling such discrepancies. This is one of the key advantages of Valuentum’s birds-eye view. We can call out mis-pricings as we see them. You’ll find the market is not as smart as academia says it is – sorry advocates of EMH.

As for Best Ideas portfolio holdings, Teva’s (TEVA) and PPL’s (PPL) quarterly reports were business as usual. I didn’t see anything wrong with PPL’s quarter and was quite encouraged by management’s confidence in its ability to drive mid-single-digit earnings per share growth through 2017. We’ll re-evaluate our position in shares in the Dividend Growth portfolio as the spinoff of Talen Energy approaches.

I still remember when I received an email from a member a few weeks or so after we added Teva to the Best Ideas portfolio. I think the stock had dropped from $40 to $36 per share over that time – a completely immaterial move – but he felt something was terribly wrong. Shares of Teva, one of the best performers in all of 2014, are now approaching $60 per share, up significantly from the July 24, 2013 “add” price! Our fair value estimate of shares is in the mid-$60s.

Give us some wiggle room, please.

I preach: “Perspective. Perspective. Perspective.” And then I preach: “Patience. Patience. Patience.” And remember the critical formula: materiality + context = experience. Those that are following our investment seminars know what I am talking about. For those that don’t know, I’m always available. I want you to succeed!

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It is good to have some investment selection and retention rules. 'Knowing what you are investing in' means very different things to different people.  For me it involves both qualitative and quantitative analysis and the creation of either a buy price or a target price.  It is certainly not flawless - no one's methodology is - but it plays to my strengths and makes identifying investment opportunities plausible and potentially timely.

Staples got highlighted as a potential investment over a year ago and - after suitably due diligence and related - I bought stock at a variety of prices over the last year with an average 'in price' of a little under $13.   

It certainly was not as easy holding and I had many doubts. Three effective profit warnings in the last year as online retailers like Amazon ate into their sales and the cost of optimising the legacy store network bore down.  I was heartened however by the free cash flow generation and relatively strong balance sheet.  

Roll back a few weeks and the most recent quarterly update from the company surprised the market judging by the share price reaction.  It wasn't as if trading conditions were remarkably better more that the analyst community had become too enamoured with the notion of terminal decline.  The post results move took me back into profit after all the issues and angst. 

And that is when I made my error of selling, self-justified through some suitable analysis of course.  

The trouble is you can have years battling the market but we all like to know that we bought low and sold high and that the gods of P&L will forever opine that you made money on this trade.  I believe it was Nathan Rothschild - not unused to riches -  who once said "I never buy at the bottom and I always sell too soon." Not a bad characteristic to have if the latter price is generally higher than the former one.  

So I booked my profit and moved on a week or two ago over a few transactions.  

Well you know the rest via the 6% Starboard stake build and rumours of a link-up with Office Depot in which the investor also has a stake. 

Source: Big Charts

Well done to any continuing Staples shareholders - I am sure you are very pleased with the share price today.  For myself a feeling of inevitable frustration...but this is the way it goes in investments sometimes.  You do the work, fix the level and sometimes when it no longer is working for you, a sale goes through.  What matters more is that you keep on going with enthusiasm and discipline...

There's always another day and another investment to make.