Hasbro Wobbles, Won't Fall Down

Reading through the Hasbro (NYSE:HAS) toy and game list is like a trip down memory lane. Like many other kids, I spent countless hours tossing that soft, orange Nerf ball through the small plastic basketball hoop fastened to my closet door. One day I was "Pistol" Pete Maravich, dazzling the crowd with my incredible artistry, and the next day I was Walt "Clyde" Frazier, coolly sinking a shot at the buzzer.

The real trick of playing Nerf basketball in your room was to avoid hitting the ceiling on your shots; the taller I got, the more challenging this feat became. I eventually moved my game outside and into gyms where I parlayed my "Pistol" and "Clyde" Nerf dreams into a full athletic college scholarship. So many of us grew up with toys and games such as Monopoly, Twister, Candy Land, GI Joe, Mr. Potato Head, and countless other memories that are now looked at as wonderful throwbacks. Kids today are so spoiled by colorful games on computers and game systems that they have trouble sitting still and playing a simple game.

This conflict of parents' memories versus kids' desires to have the latest and greatest toys and games is quite intense. Just walk into a Toys "R" Us (NYSE:TOY), Target (NYSE:TGT), or Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) store one day and watch all of the little spoiled kids throw tantrums in the aisles. I stopped taking my usually well-behaved 9- and 6-year-old kids to these stores because they had difficulty controlling their toy desires. All right, they were driving my wife and me crazy!

I must admit that it's also difficult to watch the painful struggle that exists in the toy and game industry. The news that flashes across my screen looks more like a soap opera called The Young and the Plastic. Barbie and Ken break up; KB Toys, Zany Brainy, and the legendary FAO Schwarz go belly-up; the wonderful relationship between Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Toys "R" Us falls apart, and they head to court to try to settle their differences; and kids walk around like unreachable zombies with handheld video games. Hasbro's sales and earnings shortfall announced this morning points to one simple flaw for the company: You can't be all things to all people. It is widely known that Hasbro produces cash the way Donald Trump does, but it might be time for the company to tighten its product line and leverage its core strengths.

With the toy and game industry in complete disarray, it is up to companies such as Hasbro to lead the way. Producing revenues for the second quarter that were 13% below analysts' expectations was not a good start. Regardless of the fact that its Beyblade battling tops weren't crashing into one other as much as the company would like, I would expect Hasbro to get out of Monopoly jail; boost their Weebles to wobble but not fall down; put Mr. Potato Head's eyes, ears, and nose back in place; and try to untangle the Twister game that has become the toy and game industry. This Motley Fool Stock Advisor and Motley Fool Hidden Gems pick is trading at 12 times its 2005 EPS estimate of $1.52 per share; given the company's forecasted double-digit growth rate and 1.36% dividend yield, the shares are still attractive for total return investors.

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Phil Wohl spent more than 12 years on Wall Street and now concentrates his writing on more fictional characters. He has no stake in any firm mentioned above.