With Barnes & Noble set to report first quarter earnings before the market opens on Tuesday, analysts and short sellers are trotting out their seasonal pessimism about the company’s prospects. The consensus expectation is that BN will post a loss of 96 cents per share on revenue of $1.48 billion, and on Wednesday morning Stiefel Nicolaus downgraded its rating from “buy” to “hold,” causing the shares to decline almost 6 percent, closing at $12.56 per share, its lowest level since April. (Shares are down again slightly so far Thursday morning.) The downgrade is based on sentiment or a hunch rather than […]