Circuit City Stores Inc. needs to entice some workers, managers and executives to stay with the company until it has completely liquidated all of its assets. In fact, the company this week asked a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge to provide incentives to retain those exact folks -- for at least a little while. Would this matter? You decide.

Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) CEO Brad Anderson indicated this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that the largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S. would be looking at about-to-be-vacated retail locations that are closing due to Circuit City's ongoing liquidation that's expected to run until sometime in March.

Where it makes sense, Best Buy could most likely snap up locations for smaller-format stores for its Best Buy Mobile operations or other concept stores it would like to test. It certainly will be able to acquire some former Circuit City locations on the cheap. It's a good move as the mass market consumer electronics retailer experiments with growing sales outside the standard big-box format.

Circuit City Stores Inc. (NYSE: CC) is going away for good. The nation's former second-largest consumer electronics retailer told the investing world this morning that it had not been able to reach any kind of deal with creditors or potential bidders of the company. As such, it will ask the bankruptcy judge presiding over its case to begin liquidating all of its assets as soon as possible.

This all started when former Circuit City CEO Phil Schoonover fired over 3,500 sales staffers and tried to replace them with lower-paid workers. The first time you take away your greatest asset -- those who touch customers every day -- due to cost concerns, you're ultimately doomed.

Circuit City Stores Inc. (OTC: CCTYQ) continues to negotiate with potential buyers who the company says want to continue operating the second-largest electronics retailer. I will believe it when I see it.

The retailer has gotten its butt kicked by Best Buy Co. (NYSE: BBY) for years. Its penny-pinching ways has resulted in lousy service because the company was too cheap to pay experienced sales help. Moreover, this is a bad time to sell electronic gadgets and gizmos that are the very definition of discretionary spending. Retail sales have dropped for six straight months.

Anyone hoping a white knight will rescue Circuit City, which has more than $2.3 billion in liabilities, is going to be surely disappointed. The bankruptcy spooked real estate companies with mall holdings that rent to Circuit City and other chains.

Whatever interest there is in the chain is likely from liquidators and real estate investors. Even these buyers are going to drive a hard bargain because of the distressing number of chains in the same situation such as Linen's 'n Things and KB Toys Inc.

Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC) may start liquidating some if its assets this week, the retailer indicated a few days ago. If Circuit City cannot find someone to help, its existing bankruptcy may turn into a complete obliteration of the entire company.

It's sad for many reasons. First, the incredible mismanagement of the company in the last two years led it down a self-destructive path. Former CEO Phil Schoonover either was very incompetent or very complacent in not attacking the competition, even before the economy collapsed and consumers stopped spending.

Second, it's hard to say if the retailer knew it was headed for oblivion and was only trying to buy time when it filed for bankruptcy last November. It wouldn't be the first time.

Circuit City's situation is so dire that it indicated last Friday that it may promote itself "as a going concern, as separate business units or as individual assets -- including the sale of inventory." In other words, look for a fire sale soon. Unless it receives an equity injection, this company is dead. Dead dead. If January 16 comes and Circuit City does not have some money or a buyer, it'll start breaking itself up faster than the Titanic.

Circuit City Stores Inc. (NYSE:CCTYQ) may not be long for this world.

The troubled electronics retailer said today that it has until the end of next week to reach a deal "with interested parties" or else it would be forced to liquidate. This is hardly surprising.

Circuit City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November after being squeezed by both the credit crunch and rivals including Best Buy Inc. (NYSE: BBY). Moreover, consumer confidence is at an all-time low making it difficult for any seller of discretionary purchases such as electronic gadgets and gizmos.

It will be a miracle if a white knight comes to Circuit City's rescue. For one thing, Best Buy, the No. 1 retailer of electronics, is struggling too. The company today narrowed its 2009 forecast because of weak sales in December Many other retailers are facing hard times and more bankruptcies are expected.

But Circuit City has been in trouble even before the economic slowdown. In March 2007, the second-largest electronics retailer gained headlines after it fired 3,400 "experienced" workers and replaced them with lower-paid less-experienced staff. It was a public relations disaster.

Not only did it make the Virginia retailer to look like a heartless employer, but it made it seem that it did not give a hoot about its customers. People like me have gadget-phobia. Anything computerized or electronic freaks us out. When are looking to buy a new gizmo, we need lots and lots of hand holding from sales people. My fellow gadget-phobes and myself are not going to take a chance of getting poor service from Circuit City.

Like many communities, we have Circuit City and Best Buy next door to one another. Guess which parking lot is usually empty.

Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) warned of a disastrous holiday retail season before it occurred, even with bankrupt competitor Circuit City Stores, Inc closing stores and having survival issues. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) by far was Best Buy's worst nightmare over the holidays, gaining same-store sales growth and being about the only retailer that was growing while all the others were shrinking.

With Best Buy set to report December earnings this Friday, many eyes will be on the retailer to see just how bad or good it performed over the holiday selling season. Stifel Nicolaus analyst David Schick believes that a 6.5% drop in same-store sales is on tap for the December quarter for Best Buy, which would be in line with the retailer's own doom and gloom predictions. However, Schick also thinks that there will be an uptick in December's numbers based on Best Buy's grasp of market share from the faltering Circuit City.

Schick notes that the rapidly falling prices in flat-screen televisions has hurt Best Buy, along with "the largest drop in durable goods spending since 1942." Best Buy still, though, has most of the market for consumer electronics outside from the mass discount retailer scene. There is generally not much national competition for the retailer outside the warehouse clubs that sell specific product categories of electronics, and of course Wal-Mart. Still, when consumers start spending money again, Best Buy will probably rise mightily from the ashes.

Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC) has received a new line of $1.1 billion in financing to help it stay afloat as it navigates through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. A court approved the financing, which will replace a $1.3 billion asset-backed loan the company had previously been using.

How Circuit City will emerge from bankruptcy is anyone's guess. When it does, the American economy will still be in the throes of a recession and the name "Circuit City" will still be a black eye on the company from any consumer's perspective. Gregg Galardi, an attorney for the troubled company, indicated that sales at the retailer have plummeted 40% to 50% since the bankruptcy filing, according to The Associated Press.

At a local Circuit City in my area that is closing, the inside looks like a flea market more than any kind of retail operation. There's just a few flat-screen televisions left along with some digital cameras -- and the discounts aren't even that great. Perhaps all the good discounts have already walked out the door tucked under customer's arms. Regardless, the company will keep the new financing to pay employees and utility bills while it reorganizes and continues shuttering under-performing locations over the next few months. That is, until it reorganizes as a "new" entity and the customers still don't show up.

Best Buy Co. (NYSE: BBY), which had dire predictions for its near-future results just recently, will report quarterly results for its Q3 period this morning at 9:00am CT. Although the consumer electronics retailer is in the boat with almost every other retailer in the process of suffering from a large consumer spending slowdown this holiday season, it's still positioned to be one of the long-term winners competing for shopper dollars.

The reason for this is because it now sits atop the consumer electronics world by itself. Fellow retailer Circuit City's Stores Inc.'s (NYSE: CC) Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is causing havoc at that competitor, and the five or six times I've scouted local Circuit City stores this month have turned out to be ghost town visits more than anything. Consumers are apparently staying away from Circuit City stores in drives. On the flip side, the many times I've visited Best Buy stores have seen packed houses. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is not the only retailer doing well this holiday season. Just a guess, anyway.

Thomas Bradley of KeyBanc indicated that Best Buy now has a "virtual national monopoly" in the consumer-electronics sector. He's very correct -- who else competes with Best Buy on a national retailer level? One can argue all day long that companies like Wal-Mart and Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) are competitors, but neither offers the breadth of consumer electronics, the individual selections nor the specialized services Best Buy does. It does consumer electronics and does them very well -- and now it how no national competitor. Once the economy takes an upswing (and it will), Best Buy will have the market cornered, and that could turn out to give the retailer a very good 2009 indeed.

With the increasingly regular announcements of layoffs and plant closings, it's clear that the recession is deepening. One clue to the economy's future direction that investors may be watching for is the upcoming earnings release of FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX). The world's largest delivery service has been considered an economic bellwether, and it just may have benefited recently from lower fuel prices and the announced departure of rival DHL from the U.S. package market.

For the company's fiscal second-quarter 2009 report, analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters on average expect to see earnings of $1.57 per share, about 2% higher than in the year-ago period, and 21.7% higher than in the previous quarter. That's about the same as the $1.58 per share FedEx forecast in preliminary results last week. Analysts expect revenues for the quarter ended November 30 to total $9.8 billion, 3.9% more than a year ago. The Memphis-based company has only fallen short of earnings expectations in one of the past five quarters, and exactly matched estimates back in the first quarter.

As part of its expansion plans, FedEx broke ground on a new Portland hub in October, and said that a new facility in China will be fully operational in the first half of 2009. The company continues to make service improvements, and declared a quarterly dividend in November. But in its preliminary results, FedEx lowered its full-year forecast, citing continued weakness in the economy.

Bankruptcies, liquidations, and layoffs are never fun for workers, but it's good to see that someone at Circuit City hasn't lost his or her sense of humor.

With the company deep in slash-and-burn mode, someone decided to slap a "DO NOT SELL" sign on a fire extinguisher.

Welcome to the 87th installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions, and just a bit of everything else when it comes to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) was set to, as usual, be one of the most aggressive discounters this holiday season in order to move as much inventory as possible. Nowhere is there a better yardstick for just how aggressive one could be than by looking at the deals offered on Black Friday.

As I sat down Thanksgiving Day to a little football and a slew of Black Friday ads to study, it became pretty clear that Wal-Mart was aggressive in its pricing, but by no means the most aggressive. Since it seems consumer electronics continue to be a focus area when it comes to holiday retailing, I focused in on that product segment. So, let's delve deeper and really see who was the most aggressive, shall we?

Although retailer Circuit City Stores, Inc. (OTC: CCTYQ) just a few weeks ago filed motions for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, you'd think all was well at the retailer. Not so -- the consumer electronics giant's shares closed yesterday at just over $0.21 and it's a ghost town scenario at many stores. After all, would you shop for holiday goods at a retailer "going out of business" in its current form? That's what Chapter 11 says to many consumers, anyway. Perception is reality.

After having visited a few local Circuit City locations yesterday, they were indeed ghost towns. There was nobody (nada, zilch) in one of the locations I visited, and only one other person in the other location. And get this: comparing several general products in several categories, I saw very few sale prices that could compete with the competition -- namely, Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY). In categories like computers and MP3 players, Circuit City's pricing was dead in the water. At least its employees were, for the time being, getting paid to stand around doing nothing.

The struggling retailer has a decent wealth of information at its website including an open letter to Circuit City shoppers (PDF File) about the bankruptcy. None of that will cool any heels, though. If Circuit City wants to do any business this holiday season, it has to act like the competition, and that means instant rebates (not mail-in ones) and aggressive price discounts on hot product categories. How about something like "Free MP3 player with purchase!" or something similar? Fly that message on the flagpole and customers will respond. Don't, and you might as well shut the doors until next year.

While you probably won't see many more doors closing before the end of the year, expect to see weak retailers facing liquidations if the holiday season is as bad as many predict it will be. We've already seen 22 retailers file for bankruptcy including Steve & Barry's, Circuit City and Linens 'n Things. Some may survive bankruptcy reorganization and live to see another day. Other retailers may not be able to find the funds to refinance and will be forced to liquidate and close.

Locally, near me in Florida, only one Circuit City has closed and you don't see much evidence of the bankruptcy. Shelves are not stocked as well and advertising is down, but you'd only know that if you watch the stores closely.

The top retailers, such as Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) will survive easily, but many second and third tier retailers will be struggling to make it. Standard & Poors downgraded the credit rating for 53 retailers already this year, which is higher than the total number of downgrades for all of 2007, and it expects to downgrade more before year end. Deloitte Research Chief Economist Carl Steidtmann told Business Week, "It's been a long time since we've seen an environment as challenging as this."

It seems like it happened years ago, but it's been only about a month since Wall Street had its huge, post-plummet surge. Touting it as the biggest one-day point gain in the history of the market, newspapers around the country featured pictures of financial industry professionals grinning and bouncing, hugging each other like it was V-J day and they were all unwed nurses wearing fresh lipstick.

In The New York Daily News, the stock market dancing monkey du Jour was a red-headed guy with a close-cropped hairdo, extravagant sideburns, and the standard blue trader's jacket. In picture after picture, the paper featured him leering, giving a thumbs-up, and hugging a burly fellow trader who was a dead-ringer for actor Michael Lerner.

At the time, I heaped scorn upon the head of the poor unknown trader, mocking his excessive enthusiasm, mildly frightening grin, and overall air of mindless faith in the system. Being something of a cynic, I knew that today's high would be almost matched by tomorrow's low, which would be followed by another dizzying high, and so on as the market tried to find equilibrium. I saw the redheaded trader's excessive enthusiasm as indicative of the kind of cocksure investing that got us into this mess in the first place.