Sears Holdings Corporation (SHLD) is having a sale today. On its stock. Question is, do you think it's cheap enough to be a value?

I have reservations about buying the current dip. At the time of this writing, shares of the retailer were off by 5.8% to $82.19. Active volume backed the move. Granted, it's not like the stock is at the 52-week low of $59.21. Things aren't that dire. But the company isn't close to the 52-week high of of $125.42, either. And as for the one-year chart, well, I'm not sure the image is one to praise.

With about two hours to go before the end of the trading day, Sears Holdings (SHLD) was up over 6% to $74.38. The company cannot be called a shining star in the retail sector. Connie Madon wrote about the business last month, placing it in the laggard category.

But there has been interesting activity today in terms of call options associated with the equity, as noted by TheFly. Here's another point to ponder: Benzinga has highlighted the big volume driving the trade of the common stock. There seems to be some confusion over why this is happening. It can't be the news about the movie-download initiative, right?

Sears Holdings (SHLD - option chain) stock is trading lower today after the company reported Q3 earnings this morning, posting a loss of $218 million, or $1.98 per share, on revenue of $9.68 billion. Analysts had forecast a loss of $1.07 per share on revenue of $9.95 billion. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on SHLD.

This morning, SHLD opened at $63.00. So far today the stock has hit a high of $64.44 and a low of $62.02. As of 12:10, SHLD is trading at $62.44, down $3.76 (-5.7%). The chart for SHLD looks bearish and S&P gives SHLD a negative 2 STARS (out of 5) sell ranking.

Sears Holdings (SHLD - option chain) stock is trading lower today after the company posting a second-quarter loss of $39 million, or 35 cents per share this morning. Excluding one-time items, SHLD lost 19 cents per share on revenue of $10.46 billion. Analysts had forecast a loss of 18 cents per share on revenue of $10.62 billion. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on SHLD.

This morning, SHLD opened at $66.80. So far today the stock has hit a high of $66.80 and a low of $61.89. As of 12:10, SHLD is trading at $62.25, down $5.00 (-7.4%). The chart for SHLD looks bearish and S&P gives SHLD a negative 2 STARS (out of 5) sell ranking.

Walmart (WMT) is a big-cap, blue-chip business in retail, one that competes with Sears Holdings (SHLD) and Target (TGT), among others. It's generally considered one of the safer, although considerably more boring, names in the universe of equities. However, could it be a defensive play in this economy?

Difficult to say for certain. As I've said before, I don't care what stock you hold in your portfolio, it'll go down if the markets become very choppy, defensive reputation or not. And Walmart isn't necessarily the first idea you think of when you think defensive. Usually, you might come up with a Coca-Cola (KO) or a Kraft (KFT) ... something with food involved, something that sells products consumers use and need every single day and can buy at multiple locations, not just at one single shopping source.

In very contrarian fashion, Bernie Schaeffer has used the market pullback to initiate two positions in retail stocks.

The editor of Schaeffer's Research -- who uses a combination of technical, fundamental and sentiment-based metrics to select his trading positions -- has bought shares of Sears Holdings (SHLD) and Williams-Sonoma (WSM).

Schaeffer explains, "I initiated a long position in Sears Holdings. Price action for SHLD has been strong, with the equity up 13 percent year-to-date and 75 percent in the past 52 weeks.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT), perhaps the most famous retailer in the world, whose competitors include Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST), Sears Holdings (SHLD), and Target Corporation (TGT), is actually in the green as I compose this opening sentence during the afternoon trading session. Can you believe it? A stock actually in the green! After an earnings report, no less! It is currently higher by $1.62, or 3%, to $54.35. The traders are loving it, because volume is above average with a couple hours left to go before the bell tolls.

Wal-Mart hasn't been the most exciting stock over the last twelve months. The range hasn't been too wide, with a 52-week low of $47.35 and a 52-week high of $56.27. And the stock has sort of meandered around in something of a sideways pattern (you do get a dividend with the shares, though, so there is a total-return situation going on).

Sears Holdings Coproation (SHLD) is a fascinating stock. It's done very well over the last year. Yet, who out there can claim that they'd be willing to buy the story without any trepidation whatsoever? Well, there are obviously many who would make such a claim, I suppose. I know I'm not one of them.

Our summary of retail quarterly reports tells us that Sears Holdings, which competes with Best Buy Co., Inc. (BBY), Target Corporation (TGT), and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT), delivered an earnings-beating performance. Adjusted profit of $3.69 per share in Q4 represented a solid increase over the $2.94 per share booked in the comparable period.

Sears Holdings (SHLD) was selling off close to 5% at the time of this writing in reaction to the company's Q3 report. On an adjusted basis, the retailer lost 81 cents per share. That was better than the 90 cents lost in the comparable period, and it did beat the forecast as highlighted in our earnings preview.

I'm sort of shocked that the market didn't bid Sears higher. Going into the earnings news, the stock was hanging out near a 52-week high. Let's see, Wall Street sends the stock to the high point of the range, the release comes out, the loss isn't as bad as analysts expected it to be, and everyone sells. The market sure is strange sometimes, isn't it?

Not long ago, I found myself in Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD) buying a video game. While at the point of sale -- which was a nightmare, not because of anything related to the checkout process, but because a jerk cut in front of me and, after the completion of his transaction, proceeded to deluge the poor associate at the register with a bunch of random, techno nerd-talk that said associate clearly couldn't care any less about (but I digress) -- I noticed something pertaining to a Christmas Club card. Sounded interesting, but I didn't pay much attention to the selling material.

Well, last night I was checking out some articles at Brandweek.com, and lo and behold, I came across this one discussing the holiday card. You know how Christmas Clubs work at banks, correct? Same principle applies here. In a simple nutshell, you get the plastic, you store funds on it, and then you can access those funds later on in the season to acquire presents. It's basically like a gift card that you use for budgeting purposes. Not only is Sears involved in this, but so is Kmart. And there's a promotion going on that's mentioned in the article where you can earn a nominal amount of bonus money on it. I don't know the details; I would suggest checking with Sears/Kmart for further information.

What would happen if a brilliant hedge fund manager took over a retailer and ran it with a rigid focus on financial metrics, putting aside all that soft stuff about branding and marketing?

Take a look at Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD), and you have your answer. While macroeconomic trends haven't exactly been the company's friend, the stock has plunged from close to $200 per share in early 2007 to its current price of $66 per share. Just a few months ago it was trading in he mid-$20s.

Slumping sales did in Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD) in the second quarter, as the company posted a surprise loss of 17 cents per share (excluding items). The Street expected the company to report earnings of 38 cents per share. Why the staggering disparity?

One reason is that comparable-store sales dropped 8.6% (12.5% at Sears stores and 3.9% at Kmart). Another reason is what the company called "significant items," which include costs associated with store closings and severance (32 cents per share), domestic pension plan expenses (22 cents per share), mark-to-market losses on Sears Canada hedge transactions (8 cents per share), and a positive impact of a reversal of a $62-million reserve (29 cents per share). The store closings include charges that related to the decision to close 28 underperforming stores.

JCPenney (NYSE: JCP), a mall retailer that competes with Macy's (NYSE: M), Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD), and Kohl's (NYSE: KSS), reported Q2 earnings on Friday. How were they? They were exactly how you'd expect them to be in this environment: not so good.

Net income did beat expectations, though. According to Bloomberg, the company made 0 cents per share, but that was enough to win the analyst game since the call was for a loss of a penny per share. Total sales, however, decreased almost 8%, and same-store sales plunged well over 9%.

Facebook is making the biggest ad splash since Google, according to an article in the Financial Times.

More than four-fifths of the largest advertisers in the United States have turned to the social networking platform to promote their wares -- after several years of fearing these types of communities. The lure of Facebook must have been too much to resist, with 340 million monthly unique visitors. Now, it's not unusual to see the likes of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Nike (NYSE: NKE), and AT&T (NYSE: ATT) advertising in this world.

Sears Holdings Corporation's (NASDAQ: SHLD) storied and failed strategy in the last few years under the auspices of investor Eddie Lampert just keeps chugging along. Lampert thought he could turn Sears Holdings into an investment company that happened to have a retail operation attached. Didn't happen.

But, that does not mean Sears is giving up the ghost. The retailer everyone loves to dog as stodgy and out of touch is getting back into one business where it was decades ago: toys. That's right -- and just in time for the 2009 holiday season. Question: will anyone go out of their way to shop at Sears for toys? Is there a compelling reason with so many other quality choices?