Posted Jul 3rd 2009 9:00AM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Wal-Mart (WMT), Marketing and advertising, Target Corp. (TGT), Best Buy (BBY), Sears Holdings (SHLD)
Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD), a retailer whose competitive colleagues include Target (NYSE: TGT), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), wants to improve its brand equity and find a new path to growth. As such, it's willing to employ all kinds of initiatives, especially ones that will form a nice image with the consumer during this dreadful economic contraction.
According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Sears is trying out a program that offers protection against the risk of investing in an expensive appliance during a time when job security is not as secure as it used to be.
The program will run for a specified time period beginning next week, and the basic gist is this: buy an appliance priced $399 or higher on a Sears credit card and, and if you lose your job, Sears will credit one twelfth of the cost every month. Still no job after one year? Keep the appliance, your debt will be forgiven.
Continue reading Sears offering hedge for consumers who lose their job -- good idea?
Posted Jun 29th 2009 10:40AM by Brian White
Filed under: Launches, Wal-Mart (WMT)
Retailing behemoth Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) won't be aggressively rolling in health clinics into its retail stores in 2009, as it has scaled back its plan to 31 locations with clinics from the original estimate of about 400 stores in 2009. Wal-Mart even had as many as 77 locations with in-store clinics in 2008, so it has drastically rolled back its plans here. What happened?
The recession happened, that's what. The gap from the original 77 clinics to the present 33 occurred when venture capital-funded clinics had their funds dry up amid the credit crunch of late 2008 and they haven't returned yet. Although Wal-Mart sees health clinics as a still-untapped opportunity in its stores, they won't be coming to every possible Wal-Mart location any time soon. Indeed, former CEO Lee Scott said that it would take five to seven years to get 2,000 clinics inside Wal-Mart locations. Wonder where that estimate is now?
Continue reading Wal-Mart updates scaled-back plans for in-store health clinics
Posted Jun 25th 2009 9:00AM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Wal-Mart (WMT), Walgreen Co (WAG), CVS Corp (CVS), Rite Aid Corp (RAD)
Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD), which competes with Walgreen (NYSE: WAG), CVS Caremark (NYSE: CVS), and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), saw a big increase in volume on Wednesday after it reported earnings for the first quarter. In fact, as Douglas McIntyre observed, shares of Rite Aid were up 5% at one point during yesterday's session. However, the shares ended up losing their green status by the close of trading. Rite Aid actually lost 3% when all was said and done. What does it all mean?
Well, Rite Aid did beat analyst forecasts by a wide margin. The call was for a loss of 13 cents per share. Rite Aid lost only 6 cents per share once adjustments are made. Revenues dipped a little over 1%, and same-store sales, after excluding the effect of the Brooks Eckerd acquisition, increased 1.5%. Interestingly, the mix of this increase is as follows: the pharmacy sales went up 3.1% on a comparable basis, and the non-pharmacy sales went down 1.4% on the same basis.
Continue reading Rite Aid beats analysts, but not right for me yet
Posted Jun 23rd 2009 3:30PM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Wal-Mart (WMT), Kroger Co (KR), Costco Wholesale (COST)
Kroger (NYSE:
KR), a supermarket chain that competes with
Wal-Mart (NYSE:
WMT),
Costco (NASDAQ:
COST), and
Supervalu (NYSE:
SVU), issued its
Q1 earnings report today. Not much came of it, though. The stock, as of this writing, isn't doing much in afternoon trading. Too bad for shareholders, because the bottom line beat the analysts.
According to the earnings preview from Michael Fowlkes, Kroger was expected to deliver around 61 cents per share. Well, Kroger earned 66 cents per share. The number improved last year's performance by 8 cents. Revenues were essentially flat. Same-store sales increased a little over 3%. When you think about it, Kroger did pretty well.
Continue reading Kroger increases profit and beats estimates, but I'm not a buyer
Posted Jun 22nd 2009 4:00PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: Live coverage, Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Apple Inc (AAPL), Wal-Mart (WMT), Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI), ETF Investing, Marvell Technology Group (MRVL), Suntech Power Hldgs ADS (STP)

Today was one of those market days where you just felt like the stock market was headed lower no matter what. A report from the World Bank showing lower recovery is expected in 2009 and in 2010 did not help. It took the sails out of the commodity sector and therefore out of stocks.
With little economic data to center on, traders just continued the momentum of selling to take profits. We are also seeing a reversal here where now the market needs great news to rally.
Here are today's closing bell levels:
Dow 8,339.01 -200.72 (-2.35%)
S&P 500 893.04 -28.19 (-3.06%)
Nasdaq 1,766.19 -61.28 (-3.35%)
Top 10 Analyst Calls Continue reading Closing Bell: Can't run, and can't hide (AAPL, DIA, SPY, MRVL, MSFT, STP, SIRI, WMT, YHOO)
Posted Jun 15th 2009 4:00PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: Yahoo! (YHOO), Wal-Mart (WMT), Bank of America (BAC), Amgen Inc (AMGN)

Today was a negative market from the start of trading, and the economic data just confirmed the selling, as hunting for green shoots looked more like hunting for four-leaf clovers. It seems that those analysts and economists saying that the market has risen too far and too fast are getting some more ears than in recent weeks.
The
housing data showed a dip after two months of rising data, and the New York Empire Manufacturing data
came in weaker than expected. Even the
Iran turmoil after the election failed to rally oil. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:
Dow 8,613.04 -186.22 (-2.12%)
S&P 500 923.81 -22.40 (-2.37%)
Nasdaq 1,816.38 -42.42 (-2.28%)
Top 10 Analyst CallsContinue reading Closing Bell: Rally reality check (AMGN, BAC, SVNT, WMT, YHOO)
Posted Jun 15th 2009 3:40PM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Wal-Mart (WMT), Target Corp. (TGT), Best Buy (BBY), Sears Holdings (SHLD)
Best Buy (NYSE:
BBY), the electronics mecca that competes with retailers such as
Wal-Mart (NYSE:
WMT),
Target (NYSE:
TGT),
Sears (NASDAQ:
SHLD), and
GameStop (NYSE:
GME), will be issuing earnings for the first fiscal quarter on Tuesday, June 16. According to this
source, Best Buy will see a decline in net income. Analysts believe that the retailer will do $0.34 per share, which represents a drop of about 20%.
But, according to that same source, Best Buy has beaten the analysts at their game in the last two quarters. If you ask me, I think the company has a good chance of beating the forecast yet again. With all the euphoria in the equities market as of late, and with all the talk about the recession possibly coming to an end late this year, I feel that consumers must have been in a better mood in the most recent quarter. And one would assume a big name like Best Buy would get its share of the traffic.
Continue reading Will Best Buy best the analysts?
Posted Jun 12th 2009 1:00PM by Daleela Farina
Filed under: Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Wal-Mart (WMT), Starbucks (SBUX), Mutual funds, Citigroup Inc. (C), Bank of America (BAC), Federal Natl Mtge (FNM)
Has your broker repeatedly sold you on the "safe" investment vehicle, the mutual fund? Investing in a wide variety of prominent companies, with solid, long-term track records, mutual funds have been an easy-to-understand and popular investment choice for decades.
Mutual funds are hugely diversified, holding large stakes in recognizable names such as Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Citigroup (NYSE: C), Walmart (NYSE: WMT), Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX), General Electric (NYSE: GE), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), and Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM).
Continue reading How do hedge funds differ from mutual funds?
Posted Jun 8th 2009 3:20PM by Brian White
Filed under: Products and services, Launches, Wal-Mart (WMT)
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:
WMT) is taking a larger stab with its apparel lines than in the past and has joined up with teen sensation Miley Cyrus for a new value-priced clothing line --
naturally. Cyrus, star of Disney's Hannah Montana, has hooked up with designer Max Azria for the new line.
The new junior clothing selection will include girls' tops, pants, t-shirts and shows -- all priced at under $20. Wal-Mart shoppers will see the new items in all Wal-Mart stores and at www.walmart.com sometime in August. If history holds, those same clothes will be falling apart from a few washing cycles sometime in December. Sorry, couldn't resist there. Quite a few relatives have told me about clothes from Wal-Mart literally falling apart after three months or so.
Continue reading Wal-Mart, Miley Cyrus join forces for clothing line
Posted Jun 6th 2009 3:10PM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Competitive strategy, Wal-Mart (WMT), Recession
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) has fared better than just about anyone in the recession, but its stock is down 9% so far for 2009. Why? Wal-Mart shares outperformed the market by a wide margin in 2008, but now that many investors are looking to prepare their portfolios to profit from a turnaround, there is concern that Wal-Mart will be unable to sustain its momentum once people spend more money.
To capitalize on the stock price pullback, Wal-Mart announced that it would spend as much as $15 billion to buy back its own stock. And at the company's annual meeting on Friday, recently-installed CEO Mike Duke said that "Our customers will stay with us when this economy turns around and they have more discretionary spending, I promise."
Continue reading Wal-Mart vows to buy back shares and keep recession customers
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