Sears shares see mysterious drop
The has-been retailer will report its monthly sales numbers Thursday. Are traders bracing for bad news?
Updated 4:20 p.m. ETWhy are shares of Sears Holdings (SHLD) down?
The stock fell nearly 9% Wednesday afternoon, but there wasn't an apparent reason. Other retailers were seeing smaller sell-offs -- Kohl's (KSS) fell 3.6%, and JC Penney (JCP) closed down 3.5% after it changed its promotions strategy.
Sears has been in an intense drop from mid-March, when it topped $83 a share. By early afternoon, trading volume was already at 1.6 million, higher than the daily average of 1.36 million. The stock closed Wednesday at $52.34.
One StockTwits contributor noted that the stock was approaching a death cross -- where the short-term moving average was falling below the long-term moving average. "SHLD should hit high $40s soon," wrote the contributor, the financial analysis company The Oxen Group.
Sears is expected to report its monthly sales numbers Thursday, so the drop may be in anticipation of bad news.
Analysts are down on the stock, with five giving it an "underperform" rating, one giving it a "hold" and one calling it a "strong buy."
Sears is in the middle of an ongoing restructuring effort. The company reported a first-quarter profit earlier this month, but that was accomplished only through the sale of stores. Same-store sales were down 1% at Sears stores and 1.6% at Kmart stores, which Sears also owns.
In the past Sears had everything for everyone. With specialty stores like Home Depot and Best Buy, there isn't any reason to shop at Sears anymore. Today Sears looks like five acres of clothes with one salesperson to help you find things and ring you up, not to mention giving you a five minute speech as to why you should open a Sears Mastercard account.
Sears went down hill about ten years ago, when they started centralizing services, such as the credit department and cutting the sales staff in half. There was a time you could talk to a person face to face about a credit issue, not any more.
Sears lost it way, and lost a great many of it customers. It appears to be a ship without a rudder.
I agree with charles.I bought a kenmore washer and dryer from sears about ten year ago I had to send them back about ten time ,the kept delivering me scratch up dented up waser and dryer.I called and told some manger if you deliver another one like the last ten just refund my money.Six months later a lady call me from sears and said I just looking through our records and it showed You ten delivery of a washer and dryer to your residents what happen.I laugh and hung up i refused to explain it angain for the fourtenth time.
bill
Purchased a new electric kitchen stove from Sears. They would not connect the stove unless we had a wall plug. Stove went back & sale was cancelled. Brought new stove from local family business. Brought a new ref from Sears a few years age - it has not held up, the plastic bins & shelves are cheaply made & pure junk. Guess where we will go for our new washer & dryer?
Closed our Sears account after doing business with them for over 45 years. Not worth the hassle.
We have a great family owned hardware store in town. Just got our new Char-Broil grill from them.
Also buy most all of our hardware, plumbing, lawn & garden supplies there.
Don't shop at Home Depot, K-Mart, Target, and very little at Walmart.
Love the quality at Orvis, Woolrich, Mast General Store, L.L. Bean, and Lands End.
We will have zero balance on all charge accounts by December, 2012..
I predicted Sears upcoming demise maybe 3 years ago. That was based on observations. Every time I drove by the Sears store in my town the parking lot looked like a ghost town. I was working in a town about a hour drive North of home for a few months. Drove by the Sears in that town every day. Same deal, ghost town every time I drove by. Then I went out of state for a job. A Sears store caught my eye and guess what? Parking lot looked like a ghost town.
After these observations I read a Motley Fool e-mail and Sears was a topic. I posted about my observations and my opinion about the end is near. Got ridiculed about Sears being a U.S. icon, etc.
After that I actually went in the local Sears store, first time in a Sears in well over a decade, looking for a tool. The parking lot had as many cars as you would see at any given 7-11. Inside the store, employees vastly out-numbered customers, the atmosphere seamed more like a intensive care unit or a funeral home, and they didn't have what I wanted.
MORE ON MSN MONEY
DATA PROVIDERS
Copyright © 2013 Microsoft. All rights reserved.
Quotes are real-time for NASDAQ, NYSE and AMEX. See delay times for other exchanges.
Fundamental company data and historical chart data provided by Thomson Reuters (click for restrictions). Real-time quotes provided by BATS Exchange. Real-time index quotes and delayed quotes supplied by Interactive Data Real-Time Services. Fund summary, fund performance and dividend data provided by Morningstar Inc. Analyst recommendations provided by Zacks Investment Research. StockScouter data provided by Verus Analytics. IPO data provided by Hoover's Inc. Index membership data provided by SIX Financial Information.
Japanese stock price data provided by Nomura Research Institute Ltd.; quotes delayed 20 minutes. Canadian fund data provided by CANNEX Financial Exchanges Ltd.
STOCK SCOUTER
StockScouter rates stocks from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, using a system of advanced mathematics to determine a stock's expected risk and return. Ratings are displayed on a bell curve, meaning there will be fewer ratings of 1 and 10 and far more of 4 through 7.
131 | 262 | 443 | 602 | 719 | 586 | 611 | 456 | 279 | 123 |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
LATEST POSTS
Costco and Tiffany to report earnings. Consumer confidence index for May to be released. Carnival slashes prices to attract customers after a string of accidents. Pending home sales for April are due.
FIDELITY VIEWPOINTS
- How to sell covered calls - Fidelity Investments
- Savvy year-end tax moves to consider now - Fidelity Investments
- Seven ways to prepare for tax changes
- Five reasons an annual review is crucial - Fidelity Investments
- Take a look at mid caps now - Fidelity Investments
- State of the sector: Health care - Fidelity Investments
VIDEO ON MSN MONEY
ABOUT
Top Stocks provides analysis about the most noteworthy stocks in the market each day, combining some of the best content from around the MSN Money site and the rest of the Web.
Contributors include professional investors and journalists affiliated with MSN Money.
Follow us on Twitter @topstocksmsn.