Overstock Falls Short

Overstock.com (OSTK Quote) posted a weak fourth quarter and said it would need two or three quarters to recover from an internal systems pratfall.

The Salt Lake City-based online retailer didn't break out the quarterly bottom line in its earnings press release, saying it was working out some finer points on an accounting change with its auditors. The heavily shorted stock rallied 5% as CEO Patrick Byrne made yet another melodramatic appearance on Wall Street's stage.

Overstock said fourth-quarter revenue rose 44% from a year ago to $318 million, leaving it well short of the $338 million Thomson First Call estimate. The company's quarterly loss was harder to figure, as Overstock didn't specify one in the earnings release. But according to Piper Jaffray analyst Aaron Kessler, the company swung to a fourth-quarter loss of roughly $4.1 million, or 22 cents a share, from the year earlier profit of $2.4 million, or 12 cents. ...