Piper Jaffray Reiterates Overweight on Abercrombie & Fitch

In a research note, Piper Jaffray maintains its Overweight rating on Abercrombie & Fitch

as it sees Asia to be the next growth driver for the company as it visited its stores in the continent. Piper Jaffray says, "With this trip marking our first visit to a Hollister Asia store, we have analyzed a sample pricing basket of goods and found that our average basket in RMB carried a 95% premium relative to comparable items in the US. We continue to believe that higher pricing and superior premium 4-wall economics favor longer-term margin gains. While Greater China is the newest market for Hollister, management recently indicated that the HK Hollister is on pace to generate sales of ~$10M, greater than the $8.2M/door we have assumed for international Hollister doors and vs. the ~$3M in new domestic doors." ANF closed at $46.57 per share on Friday.