For anyone who attended the Sears’ annual shareholders meeting or read/listened to any of my coverage of that meeting, the fact that the struggling retailer posted yet another disappointing quarter shouldn’t really be a surprise.
Wall Street didn’t expect Sears’ miss to be this bad though. That game of expectations is what lead to today’s headlines that call Sears’ $56 million dollar quarterly net income loss a “surprise.” But to be frank, it really isn’t too much of a surprise.
Sears Holdings Chairman Eddie Lampert himself said that he didn’t see a near-term turnaround in the consumer economy and admitted that sales were below where the company wanted them to be. The strategy is now about focusing expanding the brands that the company owns and adding more “names” to the product portfolio in order to get people to shop.
Despite telegraphing these signals, the market did get caught with a “surprise” today and shares tumbled. Even word that the board had authorized an additional $500 million worth of share repurchases didn’t bolster the stock. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
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