	wall street stocks ames dept stores add ames department stores inc fell to in what analysts said was a reaction to a surprise announcement earlier today by the company that ings in the fiscal year ended january will decline sharply ames said it expects to report ings of between and cts per share compared with dlrs per share in the previous year we were looking for dlrs said an analyst at a major wall street firm who declined to be identified ames said most of the decline resulted from an inventory shortage at its secaucus n j distribution center the obvious suspicion is that there has been some kind of fraud or theft said ralph shulansky senior vice president of ames we do not have hard evidence we are still putting things together he said it would take several weeks for the company to complete an investigation he said there are no law enforcement officials involved at this time he declined to quantify the inventory shortage but said it was the major reason for the decline in ings a decline in gross margin percentage and an increase in the effective tax rate also contributed to the downturn ames said reuter 
