Why Barnes & Noble Is Poised to Keep Plunging

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 and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Barnes & Noble facts

Headquarters (founded)	New York (1986)
Market Cap	$778.9 million
Industry	Specialty stores
Trailing-12-Month Revenue	$7.2 billion
Management	Founder/Chairman Leonard Riggio CEO William Lynch
Return on Equity (average, past 3 years)	(4.8%)
Cash/Debt	$471.0 million / $465.7 million
Competitors	Amazon.com Apple Books-A-Million

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

On CAPS, 53% of the 667 members who have rated Barnes & Noble believe the stock will underperform the S&P 500 going forward.

Just yesterday, one of those Fools, All-Star MrOneHundred, succinctly summed up the Barnes & Noble bear case for our community:

The [Nook] has lost any competitive advantage to a swath of competitors (chiefly the iPad and Amazon). ... Even in the college environment, retailers are shifting to online classrooms which will gravely hurt Barnes & Noble. Someone close to me used to work at one of their locations and would always have a story to tell concerning how the administration was bad [too]. Another reason I would avoid this stock. Some other (more quantitative figures) that are important:

ROA: -1.00 (Industry 5.80)
ROE: -4.10 (Industry 10.20) ...

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