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Back of Napkin

The Buckle, Inc. BKE

Three-pass checkedFresh as companies report

Buckle's operating income rose $16.0M last quarter and $19.1M of it was a lawsuit settlement.

Strip the settlement out and operating income fell 7.1% on 6.1% higher sales, which is the opposite of what the headline says.

BKE · price with moving averages

Daily · 6MWeekly · 3Y
$29$38$46$55$63 Sep '23Apr '24Nov '24Jun '25Jan '26Aug '26 BID
EMAs82140

Source: market data.

The business

Buckle sells jeans to young people in 442 mostly small-market stores across 42 states. Denim is the anchor and the average price per piece rose $2.17 last quarter, of which 83 cents came from denim alone. The salesperson works the floor properly, builds an outfit, and gets paid on it, which is why the average unit retail keeps climbing in a category that is supposed to be commoditised.

There is no debt, $266.2M of cash and $23.8M of short-term investments against a $2.26B market value, and no goodwill on the balance sheet at all. Almost everything the business earns leaves as a dividend. That is the arrangement, and it has been for years.

Inside the complete Back of Napkin

  1. 01The business
  2. 02The numbers
  3. 03Management
  4. 04How it fails or surprises you
  5. 05The shape of the payoff
  6. 06Closing thoughts
  7. 07Methodology

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