"Companies are blaming storms for slow sales"
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When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, women across the country crimped their cosmetics spending. Or at least that's what companies like Avon and Estee Lauder want investors to think.
Katrina also caused mattress sales to slide, according to Tempur-Pedic International Same goes for business at Books-A-Million stores and Diebold Inc.'s automatic-teller machines.
With the third-quarter earnings season kicking into gear next week, the blame-it-on-the rain excuses are starting to pile up across corporate America. It's a challenge for investors to sort out fact from fiction in those reasons.
