Piper Jaffray Maintains Overweight Rating Citing Presidential Election and Hurricane Sandy for weak Q4

Piper Jaffray maintained its overweight rating for Ann Inc.

following the retailer's Q4 earnings report. Regarding a weak Q4 report, Piper Jaffray noted, "Results early in the quarter were negatively impacted by Hurricane Sandy and the election, the former of which was compounded by ANN's outsized exposure to the Northeast. On the fashion side, management indicated that it is pleased with its assortment at Ann Taylor, but that the assortment at Loft did not have enough neutral bottoms and featured colors that were too bright." Shares of Ann Inc. are trading at $31.14, a 7.38% increase.