Ross Stores: honesty is appreciated

During the last conference call for Ross Stores (Rost), we had a taste of how honest the company is. When asked what went wrong in the Home segment in the fourth quarter, the CEO simply stated they've made some executional mistakes in their assortments. How often do you hear this type of frank acknowledgement of mistakes? Rarely.

See the Earnings Call Transcript.

Heather N. Balsky - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

This is actually Heather Balsky calling for Kimberly. We were just wondering how did home perform in the fourth quarter and how do you think that compares versus last year? And what are any strategies you have in place for home in 2013?

Michael Balmuth - Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Home trailed the company in the fourth quarter, and our strategies going forward are really to improve the executional mistakes we made. We've made some organizational adjustments, but we've made some executional mistakes within our assortments. So this is a year of getting back to basics in that business.

Heather N. Balsky - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Do you have any examples of execution issues that you kind of are looking to improve?

Michael Balmuth - Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Just the assortments were substandard, and so we've adjusted those.