Stop making me mad, and I MIGHT buy your stock.

I've never really been a fan of Abercrombie and Fitch. The stock's performance over the past few years has been really great, but the company keeps offending people! (Kind of like Sony, I guess).

Abercrombie has been in the news a few times in the past few years over the printed material on their t-shirts. Back in 2002, Abercrombie offended a large portion of the Asian American community, when their t-shirts implied amusement behind Asian accents. As an Asian, I was definitely not amused. And then, maybe last year, Abercrombie's t-shirts offended West Virginian residents with t-shirts suggesting inbreeding as highly common in WV. Or how about earlier this year when they rolled out a line of thongs for children?

Apparently today, the fuss is brought about by a group of females that have officially "girlcotted" Abercrombie. The specific t-shirts they're complaining about have slogans such as:

• Anatomy Tutor
• Blondes are Adored - Brunettes are Ignored
• You better better make more than I can spend

The girls that are girlcotting say that Abercrombie makes the assumption that females will want to wear t-shirts that make themselves look ditsy. I completely agree. However, this new line of shirts alone, accounted for a 20% increase in sales. However impressive that statistic is, is it worth offending groups of potential customers? I know after that Asian American incident in 2002, I've never re-set foot into a store. It's not really a conscious effort, but why would I want t-shirts telling people I'm an anatomy tutor?

Well I guess me and the girlcotters are the only ones annoyed at Abercrombie's shirts. This morning, before the bell, Abercrombie reported a surge in October sales of a whopping 41%. Some people are buying Abercombie's clothes. And if all this drama is bringing Abercrombie free publicity and exposure to new customers, then I guess it's great for the company.

I probably will never own Abercrombie stock. Probably. I don't know if the temptation of the great sales increases will eventually lure me in or not. I think for some companies you need to make a personal stand. My mentality is, if Abercrombie stopped offending people how much better would their sales be? Maybe after they stop printing shirts that suggest that women have an IQ of 5, I'll think about investing in their stock. Otherwise, why buy into a company with all this excess drama?

P.S. Sorry I haven't written in awhile. Grad school is overwhelming.