Anthony Chukumba Quotations

When you strip everything out, the performance is pretty much as expected.

New growth drivers are more of an issue for Home Depot than Lowe's. Lowe's domestically still has about half the sales of Home Depot. To some extent, Home Depot's growth opportunity is limited in the U.S. where it already has nearly 2,000 stores.

I wouldn't say that there is a definite shift in how people are furnishing their homes and that's why Pier 1 is lagging. Pier 1 has made missteps in merchandising, in its store layout and advertising. It really could take a management shakeup to fix things now for Pier 1.

I was a little surprised that the fourth quarter guidance at the mid-point is a little weaker than people were looking for ... but to some extent that?s nit-picking.

Pier 1 needs to fix the problem with its merchandise. Fewer people are going into their stores because they're not selling anything different,

Wall Street is not as bothered as it should be because of Buffett. He's legendary for investing in undervalued companies for the long haul. Absent Buffett and Pier 1 would be in more trouble,

When you exclude those ... dealerships, the fact that sales were up 15 percent and orders were up 19 is additional evidence that the U.S. office furniture market is improving and Herman Miller is sort of riding the wave.

OfficeMax is in the first inning of the ballgame here in terms of the restructuring plan. They've got a lot of tough work ahead of them.

It strikes me as a little odd because he's got such a huge focus on cost cutting. I don't think investors are going to be terribly concerned about it.

The biggest problem has been increased competition from retailers like Target. In my opinion, Target's home furnishing offerings are as good if not better than Pier 1's and more competitively priced,

Target's Global Bazaar is competing well with Pier 1 in similar merchandise,

Target's Global Bazaar collection is competing well with Pier 1 in similar merchandise,

It was good to see the double-digit sales growth and the strong (profit) margin expansion. It provides further evidence that the global office furniture market is continuing to rebound strongly.

If there's a way to do this on the cheap, or cheaper, I would expect that from him.

I certainly didn't think it was anything spectacular.