Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, book retailer Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) has received the dreaded one-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Barnes & Noble's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Barnes & Noble facts

Headquarters (founded) New York (1986)
Market Cap $731.8 million
Industry Specialty stores
Trailing-12-Month Revenue $7.1 billion
Management Founder/Chairman Leonard Riggio
CEO William Lynch
Trailing-12-Month Return on Equity (7.5%)
Cash/Debt $27.4 million / $251.6 million
Competitors Amazon.com
Apple
Books-A-Million

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 53% of the 631 members who have rated Barnes & Noble believe the stock will underperform the S&P 500 going forward.

Just last month, one of those Fools, NJ7, summed up the bear case for our community:

[Barnes & Noble] has been consistently losing money and missing estimates for at least two years, with an overall downward trend in earnings. While its debt to equity is decent, its current ratio is 1. ... The biggest problem for Barnes and Nobles is that the national bookstore chain is likely an endangered species, unless B&N can undercut Amazon and other online retailers' prices. I can obtain books frequently for >10% less from Amazon, and Amazon has a much greater selection. While the Nook was a good move, there is so much competition in the eReader business that B&N may well fail to profit from this. The bottom line is, the physical bookstores are a tremendous drag on B&N, with a huge amount of space to maintain ... Local bookstores with novelty items and a devoted clientele also are piling on, leading me to conclude that B&N will continue to head down.

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