Talk about advances. Institutional investor (II) sentiment on Whirlpool Corp. (NYSE: WHR) has strengthened in-sync with the strengthening global economy, and that's why I'm reiterating my Buy rating for the appliance manufacturer, first recommended on April 13, 2009 at a price of $34.47. If you bought WHR in April, you're up a remarkable 111%.

Whirlpool's pleasant growth story remains the same: emerging market sales, particularly in Latin America (20% of revenue), are sending growth signals; Europe and the U.S. may lag for 1-2 more quarters; the U.S. market looks like the major hurdle -- with household formation likely to remain sluggish into mid-2010. Overall, look for FY2010 revenue to increase 4-6%; in FY2011, WHR is likely to return to double-digit revenue growth.

Wall Street watchers can be excused for feeling a little whipsawed this week. After watching stocks lose ground early in the week, they roared back Thursday, riding high on a bevy of upbeat earnings reports. That enthusiasm remains partially on display this morning with two of the three major U.S. stock indexes showing a positive opening ahead of the morning bell.

At about 7 a.m. ET, the Nasdaq Composite Index and S&P 500 were slightly higher, while the Dow Jones industrial average was down by about 4 points. The Dow gained 1.3% Thursday to close the session at 10,081.31, led by the strong earnings reports from five of the benchmark index's 30 component stocks.

The much-maligned federal government's "cash-for-clunkers" program, is, nevertheless, stimulating the U.S. economy.

True, it may take new cars sales that would normally occur in 2010 and bring them forward to 2009, but that fact, combined with the extra customer traffic the program has created in the nation's auto showrooms, has bumped up auto sales -- providing a slight tailwind for the U.S. economy.

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.

The chain that once dubbed itself "where America shops" is increasingly a place shoppers avoid. Despite its much-publicized recovery efforts, investors should consider steering clear, too. Sears Holdings Corporation (NYSE: SHLD) has been in the news a great deal lately, announcing awful sales results and planning yet another stock buyback to prop up its flailing price.

The recent store changes have not worked, and neither will the financial engineering. This company is on its way down, and a visit to a local store showed me why.

Sears used to be the General Motors (NYSE: GM) of retailers -- an apt analogy when both were all-American giants, and just as apt today as both struggle. Sears had completely lost its way when vulture investor, Eddie Lampert, bought the company in late 2004 and combined it with Kmart. Wall Street analysts went nuts, pushing the stock price to $192 a share.

Today, Wall Street has lowered that price to near $40.

This post is part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst in Money 2008 feature.

There have always been brand decisions that seem to come out of left field. Some make you wonder what they were thinking, while others make you wonder what took so long. The year 2008 was no exception.

It came as something of a surprise when in June Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) announced that it would sell off many of its retail gasoline stations to local owners. While Exxon continued to post record quarterly earnings, and fuel prices spiked to all-time highs earlier this year, gasoline retailers in fact have faced razor-thin margins and fierce competition. It would take a significant boost in prices to make gas stations profitable, a notion that didn't seem to worthwhile back in June. Wonder what they think of that decision now that gasoline prices have fallen to a multiyear low?

I recall when Kinko's, the photocopying and faxing service provider with the catchy name, seemed to explode out of nowhere. And it seemed a little sad when FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) gobbled up the successful upstart. But it was probably inevitable that the Kinko's name would be phazed out. It took quite a while, but FedEx finally announced eariler this year that it would just that. The newly christened FedEx Office (not so catchy, is it?) wants to shed itself of the image of a photocopying and faxing place to that of a back-office services provider for small to mid sized businesses. But will that turn out to be worth the $891 million they estimate the name change would cost? Time will tell.

In a move that many investors have wanted, General Electric (NYSE: GE) just came out and said that it is mulling over the potential spin-off of its consumer and industrial division.

According to MarketWatch, "The conglomerate said shareholders will receive stakes in the new entity covering ts appliances, lighting and industrial units."

This is great news for investors and may be a precursor for other large conglomerates that have seen their stock prices stagnate for more than six years, to start spinning off divisions in order to unlock value for shareholders.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer's fund has no position in any stock mentioned, as of 7/10/08.

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.

A few months ago, I moved into a larger apartment and found that I would need to make numerous trips to the hardware store each week -- and sometimes twice on Saturdays. The list of projects I had in mind for my new pad was as long as a city block and I knew some choices needed to be made. The most important one: Should I go to Home Depot (NYSE: HD) or Lowe's (NYSE: LOW)?

I always go to Home Depot to get lumber or some screws for the toolbox, or to glance at the power tools that I always dream of finding a use for. I go to Lowe's to pick up a closet organizer or to look at the latest washer and dryers on sale. They're both big box home improvement stores, but each one has its own special place in the world.

When I first drive into the lot of the big orange beast, I always see construction crews hauling lumber and Sheetrock into their vans. I know these people didn't search online for what they needed here, mainly because the HD site only has 20% of their actual inventory online. If you want to know what's in Home Depot, you actually have to go to Home Depot. As I walk inside, I find this magical place where men can walk happily around sawdust filled floors, sans spouse, testing out power tools and talking shop with other men. Workers in bright orange aprons walk side-by-side with beeping forklifts that weave in and out of crowded isles, creating an atmosphere that would intimidate any novice do-it-yourselfer. This is the department store for DIY weekend warriors. This is home.

I certainly don't get the same feeling driving to Lowe's. Lowe's is more focused on the aesthetics of home improvement and the final product, compared to Home Depot, which I feel is more about tools and parts. I can search through the Lowe's website much easier than Home Depot's, and even place an order to pick-up whatever I need, which is always good for the novice fixer-upper. Walking into Lowe's, I see couples walking on perfectly swept floors down extra-bright, super-wide aisles. I walk past tons of appliances and machinery that call out to me: top-of-the-line refrigerators, washing machines, and lawn tractors; I walk past them in amazement. This is a place for the general public and the occasional fix-it-yourself team; and this place takes pride in targeting women in their stores -- officials directly aim for the female customer by placing shelves at the perfect height for the 5-foot-4-inch customer.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) is now targeting price cutbacks on selected small home appliances for the Christmas season. Its rollbacks are on nearly 50 home appliances from brands including GE, Hoover and Sharp.

Here are some of the listed items and price cuts:
-Hoover fusion cyclonic upright vacuum (was $112/now $98)
-Mr. Coffee 12-cup programmable coffee maker (was $42.48/now $37.88) and espresso maker (was $29.86/now $24.88)
-Sharp .08 cubic foot black microwave (was $54.88/now $49.88)
-GE 1.1 cubic foot microwave (was $64.72/now $59.88)
-Black & Decker Quick 'N Easy 8-cup food processor (was $29.72/now $24.88)

Wal-Mart will continue to roll back the prices of toys, electronics, apparel and more this holiday season. While this is not as extreme as the select electronics price cuts, this is just one more initiative that the company is willing to do whatever it can from keeping those November same-store sales from being as FLAT as the company recently forecast. These cuts are not on such expensive items that they will bite into margins, and they probably got GE, Hoover, and Sharp to take some juice out, ,too.

But this is still a trend toward more and more lower-priced items that are driving margins down in an effort to keep from posting flat or negative same-store sales. It has to make you wonder that if the economy is slowing into 2007 what the monster retailer can do to keep its same-store sales higher in 2007.

It also makes you wonder now if Wal-Mart will actually endorse a higher minimum wage. If they have to get into the spiral of only worrying about same-store sales instead of raw profits, that would actually make sense. It would increase their labor costs drastically and therefore affect operating costs, but it might result in higher spending from their demographics in 2007.

Jon C. Ogg
November 10, 2006

Jon Ogg is a partner in 24/7 Wall St., LLC; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.