Almost every important economic indicator announced today was below expectations, The included June sales for GM and Ford Motor Company (F), less than robust jobless claims, the Challenger Gray planned layoff numbers, and pending home sales. The only good news was that mortgage rates for most loan durations hit all-time lows. That does not matter much if no one is buying a house.

Todays closing bell numbers:

Dow 9,732.53 -41.49 (-0.42%)
S&P 500 1,027.37 -3.34 (-0.32%)
Nasdaq 2,101.36 -7.88 (-0.37%)

Early Wednesday morning, BJ's Wholesale (BJ) announced that its February same-store sales increased 7.5%. Taking gasoline sales out of the equation, the retailer's sales increased 3.9%. Analysts expected the company to report a sales increase of 6.3% including gasoline and 2.6% excluding bubbling crude.

The company attributed the stronger-than-expected results to s shift of the Super Bowl to February this year, compared to January a year ago. The firm's total sales increased 13% to $755.2 million.

Kroger (NYSE: KR) closed at $21.32. KR will release Q4 results on March 10. KR March option implied volatility is at 49, July is at 44; above its 26-week average of 42, according to Track Data, suggesting slightly larger price movement.

BJ's Wholesale (NYSE: BJ) Wholesale closed at $28.26. BJ is expected to report Q4 EPS on March 4. BJ March option implied volatility is at 59; April is at 50; near its 26-week average of 55 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement into EPS.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

PetSmart (NASDAQ: PETM) issued its Q1 earnings numbers on Wednesday, and the market didn't take too kindly to them. At the time of this writing, the shares were down in after-hours trading by over 3%. I can kind of see why.

Revenues did okay, rising 9% to $1.2 billion. Earnings per share, however, dropped like a rock. Last year, the company booked $0.78 per diluted share; this year, the company did $0.32 per diluted share. However, investors need to realize that there was a gain on an investment in the previous year's quarter that skewed results; backing out the $0.47 per-share benefit gives an earnings number of $0.31 per diluted share in Q1 2007. So, the real earnings growth was rather tepid, and this might explain to some degree why there was a bit of a sell-off after the news, even though, according to Briefing.com, PetSmart beat bottom-line expectations by a penny and did exceed on the top-line as well.

Guidance for Q2 was also an issue, as Briefing.com seemed to indicate that management's growth expectations are not precisely what Wall Street was looking for. For the full year, however, PetSmart is looking to do about what Wall Street wants. If management hits the full-year earnings range of somewhere between $1.51 and $1.59 per share, then the P/E ratio on the stock is around 14. Sure, that isn't expensive, but I don't know if I want to enter a company such as this in the kind of environment we find ourselves in. Yes, pets are important and will be taken care of, but people might cut down on pampering them to excess. Plus, there's a lot of competition out there for your pet dollars. Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), Costco (NASDAQ: COST), BJ's (NYSE: BJ), and every supermarket in the country all vie for a slice of the pet market.