Is Coach prosperous?

Coach, Inc. (NYSE:COH) designs, makes, and markets luxury lifestyle handbags and accessories. Its products include handbags, business cases, men's and women's accessories, luggage and travel accessories. Coach, together with a licensing partner, offers watches, footwear, furniture, and eyewear.

Coach's current stock range is defined by a trough, which marks calculated support at $35.06 and by a peak that marked the resistance point at $57.60. These levels are closely watched by traders managing their positions.
Traders wanting to establish a position in Coach or traders that are already holding the stock can use the doji close to their advantage, since the pattern present a short term pause in the stock's price action. This pause results in an entry point for traders depending of which way the stock resolves this short term indecision.

Personalized Louis Vuitton

The Louis Vuitton initials are synonymous with luxury, of course, and now it's easier than ever to have the fabulous French label apply your personal monogram to bags featuring theirs. Louis Vuitton has simplified the process of personalizing their bags, making it possible for anyone to pop into a store and order a specially initialed piece of their own. We love a label that will cater to us, and that makes Louis Vuitton tops on our Fantasy Santa list this year.
Over 200 million combinations are possible with all the options Louis Vuitton offers, but before you choose among the color swatches, you'll have to pick the type of customization you want and the bag you want to apply it to. Personalization can be done through hot stamping on luggage tags and the bags themselves, or you can choose the mon monogram or painting processes.

Styles eligible for the personal attention are limited to the Pegase, Keepall, Speedy, Neverfull, and all hard-sided luggage items. Only the Monogram Canvas and Damier Ebene Canvas fabrications can be selected for the customization work; it's also worth noting that the hot stamping process expands your choices, as small leather goods can be included along with a few other material choices thanks to the manner in which your monogram is applied.
Pricing on personalized pieces is specific to your choices, but in general, the lowest-priced option begins around $900 (not including the smaller leather goods) and can extend as high as your imagination will take you. The smaller items and tags done with hot stamping can be ready in as few as 3 to 5 days, but most of the other customized bags take 4 to 6 weeks for delivery.

The Gains of Coach

Healthy earnings gains in the latest quarter, expectations of a relatively strong holiday season and double-digit sales in markets such as China have lifted Coach shares (ticker: COH) 55%, to 57, since Barron's predicted a year ago that the New York-based company's push into lower-priced products and foreign markets would pay big dividends ("Success Is Always in Style," Dec. 14, 2009). The stock surpassed its 2007 peak of 55 in late November, and some Wall Street analysts expect it to rally into the mid-60s as Coach's operating margins expand and quarterly results beat expectations.

Others say retail stocks have peaked ahead of the holiday season, but Coach is likely to sustain its momentum well beyond Christmas and year end. The company's expansion into China, where it operates 49 outlets, is continuing, and its more moderately priced Poppy line is selling well.
On the latest conference call in October, Coach CEO Lew Frankfort said China represents the company's "single largest geographic opportunity." Analysts note sales in China doubled to $100 million in fiscal 2010; Coach plans to open 30 new stores there in fiscal 2011.
Another promising growth driver is men's accessories, now just 3% to 4% of total sales. In the latest quarter Coach opened its first five stand-alone men's factory stores.
Some analysts have recently upped their earnings estimates, with the consensus looking for $2.85 a share for the fiscal year ending next June, and $3.23 in fiscal 2012. Coach earned $1.92 a share in fiscal 2009.
Despite a 9.8% unemployment rate and concerns about a sluggish global economic recovery, consumer discretionary stocks, especially those of high-end retailers such as Coach and Polo Ralph Lauren (RL), are surging. Consumers, especially well-heeled ones, are lining up to buy "affordable" aspirational goods such as a Coach's $398 Madison patent leather large Sophia satchel.

Coach is riding wave of growth in middle class

The growing self-indulgence of China's middle class has proved a boon to Coach Inc, the largest maker of luxury leather handbags in the United States, leading it to expect 75 percent year-on-year sales growth in its 2011 fiscal year in China.

The New York-based retailer is planning to open stores at 25 locations in China in the fiscal year 2011, which ends in July, making a total of 65 Chinese stores, Lew Frankfort, chairman and chief executive officer of Coach, told China Daily on Monday.
In fiscal 2010, Coach saw robust growth in China, with comparable store sales rising at a "double-digit" rate, according to its annual financial report. That compared with a 6.3 percent sales increase in the US.
Given its late entry in the Chinese market, however, the US handbag retailer captured only about 5 percent of China's luxury market, in which total spending reached 156 billion yuan ($23.27 billion) in 2009, according to the research firm Bain & Company.
"In China, our brand awareness is still very low, around 8 percent. We're playing catch-up," Frankfort said.
China is expected to eclipse Japan within five years as Coach's second-largest market after the US, he said.
Japan accounted for $700 million of its sales in fiscal 2010, compared with $175 million in China. "I hope China will soon outdo Japan," Frankfort said.
In October, Coach said that the next phase of its international-growth strategy will focus on Asia, after its high-profile entry to the European market, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland and Portugal.
In keeping with its Asia-focused strategy, the self-deemed "accessible luxury brand" appointed Jonathan Seliger - for five years the managing director of Alfred Dunhill China under the Richemont Group - president and chief executive officer of Coach China, based in Shanghai, in a bid to enhance the firm's competitive edge.

3 plead guilty to smuggling fake Coach handbags

Three people have pleaded guilty to plotting to smuggle counterfeit Coach handbags made in Malaysia and China into the Port of Baltimore.

Forty-three-year-old Kin Yip Ng of Whitestone, N.Y., 39-year-old Lidan Zhang of China and 32-year-old Josephine Zhou of Brooklyn, N.Y., entered pleas this week. They will be sentenced in February and March.
According to their plea agreements, from 2008 to this year, the trio paid an undercover business in Maryland to clear counterfeit clothing and accessories through U.S. Customs at the Port of Baltimore.