Late Tuesday, Saks Inc. (NYSE: SKS) announced plans to offer up to $100 million in common stock. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the upscale retailer said it will use proceeds from the offering to pay down its debt, and for general corporate purposes. Saks has approximately 138.3 million shares of common stock outstanding as of Sept. 28, and its long-term debt and lease obligations amounted to $662.9 million as of Aug. 1.

Saks has endured a rough year, thanks to a dramatic slowdown in consumer spending amid the recession. The high-end chain has swallowed quarterly losses in each of the previous four reporting periods, and analysts are expecting a loss of 14 cents per share for the current quarter.

Downtrodden General Motors (OTC: GMGMQ) is throwing in the towel on its 2010 hybrid-electric Chevy Malibu, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). Due to weak demand among retail customers, dealers have stopped ordering the car, and the automaker is currently choking on a backlog of the unpopular hybrids.

To drive home the point, the Journal quotes Joe Menegos, the sales manager at a National City, Calif., dealership, as saying, "We could care less" that the hybrid Malibu is being deep-sixed.

Bill Gross is a big deal in bonds -- with $747 billion under management in his PIMCO. Gross emailed me yesterday because he was a bit put off by some of my recent media comments about him. I responded to him by asking him some questions about PIMCO and the general market. He thinks that equities are history and people should buy bonds instead.

Gross is obviously talking his book but in my interview with him, he made a very interesting point. He suggested that since bonds and preferred stock are senior to common stocks in the liquidation hierarchy of a company, in a slow growth environment, there is no upside to stocks, only downside.