Thursday's Worst Stocks in the World

Bad days. We all have them; some of us deserve them. Here are five stocks whose naughty ways drew investors' scorn on Thursday:

Company	Closing Price	CAPS Rating (5 max)	% Change	52-Week Range
ExpressJet Holdings (NYSE: XJT)	$1.61	**	(41.03%)	$1.46-$6.45
Dick's Sporting Goods (NYSE: DKS)	$22.25	***	(16.16%)	$21.03-$36.78
Spectrum Brands (NYSE: SPC)	$4.23	*	(10.38%)	$3.21-$8.60
Talbots (NYSE: TLB)	$7.08	*	(10.15%)	$6.48-$26.10
Jackson Hewitt Tax Service (NYSE: JTX)	$13.43	***	(9.81%)	$10.90-$34.48

Sources: The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! Finance, Motley Fool CAPS.

Naughty?
Well, OK, we can't exactly call the stocks on this list naughty. There are days when five-star winners and newsletter recommendations appear here. Today, sadly, is one of those days.

If you're an investor, you'll have plenty of bad days. The trick is to avoid dating -- or, worse, marrying -- your losers. That's why I listen when our 105,000-person-strong Motley Fool CAPS community of stock pickers speaks with a poor rating or a negative pitch. You should, too.

Thus, here is today's list of the worst stocks in the world.

Worse
We begin with Dick's Sporting Goods, which yesterday fell to a new 52-week low after reporting lousy first-quarter earnings.

Net income fell 4% during Q1 thanks in part to a 4% decline in consolidated same-store sales. Gross margin, meanwhile, fell by 120 basis points, diluting the impact of a better-than-10% improvement in total revenue.

CEO Ed Stack told analysts during a conference call that Dick's customers are feeling the pinch from "gas and food prices." The company reduced its full-year guidance as a result.

Few Fools were surprised. CAPS All-Star euphoria96 put it this way in February:

Great store, still small and growing. However, we're heading into a huge recession that has not been priced into [Dick's Sporting Goods] yet. If you like [this company] wait 18 months and buy at much lower prices. Growth companies get hit very hard in market downturns.

Worser
Next up is Spectrum Brands, a former guest in this column that sank on news that fellow "Worst" alumnus Moody's (NYSE: MCO) may be threatening to downgrade its debt.

But is the situation at Spectrum really that bad? Yep. Executives recently agreed to sell its pet products division to Salton for $692.5 million in cash, which it needs -- desperately -- to pay down some of its reported $2.6 billion in long-term debt.

And I do mean "desperately." Check out how Spectrum's liquidity has deteriorated in recent years:

Metrics	TTM*	FY 2007	FY 2006	FY 2005
Debt-to-total capital (lower is better)	109.7%	104.4%	83.4%	73.2%
EBIT** / interest expense (higher is better)	1.0	0.9	1.2	1.9

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.
Spectrum's fiscal year ends on Sept. 30 of the named year.
*Trailing 12 months. **EBIT = earnings before interest and tax.

Worst
But our winner is ExpressJet Holdings, which announced a plan to cut capacity by 30% because of soaring fuel prices and "excess capacity," which is airline-speak for "too many empty airplanes."

But you knew that. For months, ExpressJet has been unable to keep pace with former legacy patron Continental (NYSE: CAL) in terms of load factor. Fixing the problem would require (a) finding a new legacy partner or (b) cutting capacity and thereby reducing fuel expense. Not much of a choice, is it?

ExpressJet and its hurry-up-and-cut-flights-before-we-go-out-of-business business model ... Thursday's Worst Stock in the CAPS World.

Do you agree? Disagree? Let us know what you think by signing up for CAPS today. It's 100% free to participate.

I'll be back in a week with more stock horror stories.