The financial weekly Barron’s has had a soft spot for Barnes & Noble’s stock for years, but unfortunately they have been pretty consistently — and significantly — wrong. Publishers are cranky about the company’s underperformance in the marketplace, as sales keep ebbing even as print book sales rise, and with the abrupt departure of ceo Ronald Boire many people are expecting yet another disappointing set of results when the company reports fiscal first quarter earnings on Thursday morning. Lightly followed by analysts, the consensus expectations for the quarter still estimate sales of $958 million (down about $20.5 million from a year ago), […]