Thursday 23 February 2012

Sears - selling off the profitable parts

Sears is certainly one wild ride lately. Today's near 19% move was probably largely due to a short-stop cascade upwards. How many bears who were heavy short on the SHLD were nuked today?



Clown channel (aka CNBC/BS) even had a doomster analyst on today. Some lady - for the second time in the last 4 montsh touting her target of $6.

She made some points this morning, and it appears that Sears is merely selling off the good parts of its business. Obviously those are the ones the vultures are happy to buy - even right now at higher prices, but for Sears.. its means they are left with possibly a decaying mess.

I guess its possible they could radically innovate and rationalise the business. Do they have the leader to help guide that kinda grand reboot?

The ultimate problem though, retail is arguably already saturated, not least in the old style dept' store 1970/80s mall shop. Far more attractive would be Macys or even JCP. Hell, at least the JCP CEO genuinely seems to have a real vision to try to get the company back on track.

The $6 target is something I will keep in mind for rest of this year, but I sure ain't touching it. I've only meddled twice in retail stocks (via options of course)... M and GPS. Neither of those worked out so well, urghh.


VIX...floored (probably)

Okay, so I do the VIX post, only for today to see yet another truly stupid low-vol' melt up -after what was a minor opening 0.5 lower..

So today, the VIX hits almost exactly on the lower trend line that I projected - see chart.

Clearly, the bears do NOT wanna see VIX break into the15s. That would possibly signal that SP'1400+ is coming, contrary to everything many (even the mainstream clown channels) have been expecting.



No doubt the TVIX people are getting real edgy again, and who can blame them. Right now, the ultra stop would be a touch under the recent low of $14. There is certainly the threat of a further death-spiral melt down to..well, this thing could easily hit $10 if VIX breaks under 16 and trundles around for a few weeks.



Needing some 'big news/event'

Bears need a major 'issue' to trigger a proper market decline. The Europeans financials were really smashed up this morning, and yet again..the main market simply can't fall more than 0.75%. Even worse, the damn transport index looks like it might be floored on momentum cycle.

Right now, even sp'1300 looks a distant dream. Kinda ultra lame to admit that, but yes..1300..seems outta range near term.

I suppose a few might say 'be careful what you wish you..you may get it'.

Frankly..I'm sick of waiting. Bring it.