Why Next Earnings Is Likely Last Chance for Sears

If Sears Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) fails to impress on its next earnings, which will include the all-important holiday sales number, then the world’s oldest retailer could finally meet its end. Sears effectively founded the concept of shopping from your home via its revolutionary Sears catalog late in the 19th century, so the fact that the company is now being displaced by e-commerce is all the more ironic.

Sears’ conundrum is that it needs to show higher revenues first and foremost, but in order to do that it will need to drastically discount prices and eat into its gross margins, which are already too small for the company to survive on. There is a fine line between discounting in a final Hail Mary to save a company and a genuine going out of business liquidation sale. This holiday season could be the pre-liquidation sale for Sears.

As grim as the picture looks, the stock itself likely will go through a volatile period of strong ups and downs as traders bet on whether this critical period will mark the beginning of a last-minute recovery or the final nail in the coffin. Friday’s 5% move higher following Thursday’s 15% plunge is a good example of what can happen day to day with the shares of a dying company. There is a reason why they call it death throes.

Why is this next quarter likely final shot at Sears saving itself? There are two main reasons. First, because a miss likely would bring the shares down low enough to the point that a merger or even hostile takeover would be preferable to shareholders than staying the course. Sears does have brand recognition in Kenmore, Craftsman and DieHard, for example, that could come in handy at a discount for other struggling retailers.

Second, a disappointing holiday season would push the company’s debt-to-equity ratio much higher as equity shrinks to the floor. That ratio is already at 138% as of the most recent close, and it could easily surpass 200% or 250% if we see another plunge in the stock. Some 58% of its debt as of its last filing is unprotected against rising interest rates, and that is not a good environment to be in while the Federal Reserve looks set to raise them.

At this point Sears is not an investment. It’s a day trade for technicians who have fun playing with volatility. Short sellers should keep this in mind though: If for whatever reason Sears does manufacture a turnaround by the end of January, considering the sheer amount of pessimism and the stench of death surrounding the stock, any surprise earnings beat could easily get you squeezed.
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