Late penalties.

When 99 Cents Only Stores reported last week that it needed a time extension to file its third quarter results, company officials were tight-lipped and analysts assumed the worst.

The stock toppled 73 cents, or 4.6 percent, on Nov. 10, the day the filing hit the wires. The next morning, the Commerce-based company started to open the flow of information, and the stock recovered 53 cents of its losses by the close of trading.

Analysts who made contact with the company said the delay was due to several factors. The Securities and Exchange Commission's accelerated filing dates, now in the second year of being phased into company schedules, bumps up the filing deadline of 10-Q forms by five days after quarterly reports.

In addition, compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which requires the auditor to conduct a review of a company's internal controls before signing off on its books, is time-consuming and expensive.

And after a busy quarter, the five-member management team of the discount retailer had some trouble getting everything done on time. The company has already endured inventory woes, heart problems of company founder David Gold, and a management shakeup.

"My sense is that company management is stretched very thin," said Joan Storms, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities. "It's a classic case of not investing ahead of growth: opening many stores without hiring enough management."

Calls to Chief Financial Officer Andrew Farina were not returned.

The company is expected to file by Monday, (Nov. 15), Storms said.