dingojoe

Amazon, Wal-Mart Battle Over Books

The Stephen King book is especially interesting, because it's a pretty safe bet that WalMart and Amazon will lose $7-8 per copy they sell. In fact it makes sense for independent book store to buy their copies from Amazon and WalMart, because it's a far lower price than they'll get from the publisher or distributors. Plus, Amazon and Walmart lose money. Wacky World that capitalism.

Who Benefited from Microsoft's Bing Cashback?

What taxes have been raised on small businesses?

Who Benefited from Microsoft's Bing Cashback?

For retailers it was about sales and promoting their brand, partly on Microsoft's dime. Clearly, if small retailer's were excluded, they have a right to be cranky.

Steer Clear of Sears - Barron's

Actually, I thought it was a fairly decent article. Mr. Laing notes that SHLD's perceived value is in the real estate and the brands. He also correctly notes that it's hard to see on the horizon anyone paying for those assets. The author also provides the mea culpa that in 2007 he wrote an article suggesting there was $300/share in value in those assets.

Basically it's a contest to see if Lampert can keep a poor retailer he hasn't invested money in (preferring to buy back stock) alive long enough to realize any value on the assets, at some point over the horizon. Thsi quarter's numbers are a blow to the idea that he can.

Sure, all retailers have been affected by the GR, but SHLD has clearly been the laggard. They've also been trapped by their Real Estate to an extent. They own and have long term leases on plenty of poor performing store, so even though they're closing about 80 boxes this year they've still got plenty of dogs left.

One thing I didn't see mentioned was the inventory which only dropped from 9.8B to 9.4B YoY. Considering a 3-4% decline in store count (of big boxes) and a 10% drop in sales, that's an awful lot of inventory which will put pressure on margins. And if you've visited stores lately, you could rightly wonder where is the inventory anyway?

Why I Bought Wal-Mart and Sold Sears

Sears/KMart is dead as a retailer specifically because of the real estate. Eddie doesn't relocate stores to take advantage of changing shopping patterns (unlike every other retailer) thus he has a growing portfolio of stores that are dying on the vine. Numerous Sears stores are operating in malls that have shut down. How long can the Sears stores remain open? Kmart has largely been reduced to backwater locations and is steadily being shut down. Eddie did take one crack at creating a freestanding Sears format with the Sears Grand/Essentials format, but those are being shut down now. I'm sure Sears does have some RE with value, but I'm guessing that the number is closer to 100 than 300-400.

Ultimately we will find out the liquidation value of SHLD because that day is approaching.

Retailers Leading the Way? Not Really.

I believe your thesis is correct, but the math is off somehow. A 6% increase in gas sales plus an 11% increase in food sales and flat merchandise sales can't add up to a 13% increase in SSS.

Actually, gasoline sales must have jumped by way more than 6%. The gasoline sales accounted for almost half of the stores sales increase. While BJs doesn't provide the info, gasoline sales had to have been up 25-30% or more in dollars.