Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Sears Holdings will not survive

Just goes to prove that if you merge two weak companies, you get an even weaker larger company.

* At a time when holiday season sales overall have turned out better than expected, Sears Holdings was an exception. It will close 100 to 120 Sears and Kmart stores after disappointing holiday sales.

* Its stock, having already lost 37% of its value this year, tumbled 20% to $36.61 in early trading.

* Sears plans to take as much as $2.4 billion of charges in the fourth quarter on asset write downs and other items.

* Comparable sales in the eight weeks through December 25 fell 4.4% drop at Kmart and 6% at Sears. In contrast, the National Retail Federation holiday forecast was a 3.8% increase.

* Fourth-quarter EBITDA is now expected to be less than half the year-earlier fourth quarter's.

* Adjusted pre-tax profit is down to about 10% of its five-year peak.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sears-holdings-to-shut-up-to-120-stores-2011-12-27

I was at a Sears on December 24 (through no fault of my own). Sears stores suck. No big surprise in any of these numbers.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

AMR Bankrupt

American Airlines parent AMR, the only major US airline operator to not file for bankruptcy during the last decade, surrendered to the stark realities of a souring global economy on Tuesday and sought Chapter 11 protection from creditors today.  The filing came as AMR gave in to the burden of the industry's highest labor and operating costs. The company’s shares plunged to 26 cents, down 84%. (MW)

Thursday, August 18, 2011

HP

Hewlett Packard may follow IBM and dump its PC division.  It's also discontinuing its WebOS operation (even though I saw an ad about how awesome WebOS is just earlier this week).  Translation: the $1.2 billion Palm purchase just vanished like a fart in the wind.

Follow-up 8/19:  As of noon today, HP is down 20% today on a generally flat day, as the market absorbs how bad this news really was.

Monday, July 18, 2011