Trader’s Narrative

The last time I was in Europe visiting family, I noticed a new chain of shoe stores going by the name of Geox, had popped up everywhere - seemingly overnight. I went into one and snooped around to see what I could learn. All their shoes featured a new ‘innovative’ design shamelessly swiped from hobos: holes in the sole.

Except these holes are pretty high tech, being “made of a special micro-porous material which absorbs sweat through the insole and lets it out in the form of water vapour. This process is made possible as the membrane’s micro-pores are larger than water vapour molecules, but smaller than water droplets - hence keeping water out and the feet dry.“

The result, as you can see from the thermal image above, is that Geox helps your feet to stay cooler and drier.

In hindsight, I should have followed Peter Lynch’s principle of “use what you know”. But maybe it’s not too late. Geox is still a fairly small and unknown company with lots of room to grow. As well, they have recently added an apparel line using the same basic technology in their shoes.

What I like about them is that they know where their strength is: Italian design and innovation. They invest 3% of their revenue into R&D while outsourcing the manufacturing to Asia and Brazil. The are growing the top line like crazy and are profitable. But the chart says all you need to know:

Here is their investor relations website, in case you are a fundymentalist.