re: to take a dive and yes it did. There is a big difference...

re: to take a dive and yes it did. There is a big difference between this and Telstra.

First of all Telstra is a very financially healthy company and earnings are holding up but flat in growth.
MRL on the other hand based on my analysis does not look that flash -

ie the liabilities to assets appears high, inventory turnover could be improved and the retained profits appear to be dwindling (is it to pay dividends they can't afford???).

I agree that the cash flows appear to be ok - but there is more to it than cash flows.

Also the eps growth rate for 2004 compared to 2003 has fallen to just over 7 cps from nearly 14 cps.

Sales have gone up just 6% in a buoyant retail climate.

Operating margins are about half what they were a few years ago as is return on assets.

Why would you then buy this and not other retails that are doing great - such as CDO, NBL, BBG, GZL, HWI, DJS, CML, WOW etc...

Analyse their peers in their industry groups that have been going up in price and it will become obvious why MRL price has been going down while others have been going up (ie eps growth, retained profit growth, return on assets, dividend GROWTH etc...).

I think they need to regain focus and maybe let go of some poorly performing businesses and then once evidence of this is shown in the reported financials then the share price will recover as they do have good businesses.

Do your own research and don't believe what I or anyone else tells you - and never, never, never try to catch a falling knife!