ERICOPOLY

Yeah but we have seen Sears putting back the lease to the landlord(mall owner) for a profit. Because they have a below-market lease rate. But they probably don't realize as much profit than if they'd owned it. I bet you're right about the Sears stores, but most of the leases are actually KMart stores.

They decline every year. Are you expecting SSS to jump YoY if he stops liquidating stores? Sales declined something like 9%. Is he currently liquidating 9% of stores and do they have zero in sales?

But you can't sell a store that you are leasing.

GM truck fires: http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/10/autos/gm-truck-recall/index.html?iid=HP_LN Nice! In the meantime, GM urged owners of the trucks in question "to avoid leaving their trucks to idle unattended."

Then make it illegal to smoke pot then. It's illegal to travel by car without a seatbelt, because it is dangerous to ride in one without a seatbelt. When there is a safety device readily available, you can make it the law that people make use of it. Keep the cars, lose the needless injuries. There are other ways to inhale it than smoking it -- technology has moved on. There are vaporizers now that many chronic potheads utilize -- they do this for health reasons because they are afraid of the health risks associated with smoking. All you have to do is Google for "weed vaporizers": http://weedvaporizers420.com/ The guy selling the vaporizers is probably going to make a lot of money. It's not even illegal to sell them under Federal law.

I am thinking more like the mall is the neighborhood that the Sears anchor store lives in. Sacramento and San Jose are geographically relatively close to one another, but nobody from Sacramento is going to shop in the San Jose mall, and vice versa. They each shop in their local mall. So if a mall space went up for sale in Sacramento and San Jose simultaneously, or if it went up for sale in one mall but not the other... it really shouldn't matter. You are talking about twice the square footage, but one mall in Sacramento doesn't affect another mall in San Jose. So if you can shut down and sell one or the other, why not both at once?

Who me? I've been pretty clear that they are trying to run the retailer -- Plan "A". There is still room to think about whether plan "B" would work -- selling 500 stores. I was thinking about Kraven's comment from months ago that in bankruptcy there is protection from the asset values exceeding the liabilities and providing safety in the common (at these prices). However, for that to be true they need to be able to liquidate -- so I'm wondering why it would be harder to sell all of their stores where the stores are all in different markets. People have been skeptical and have quoted the large total amount of real estate that SHLD holds. I'm wondering whether the total square footage is relevant at all -- isn't it just a matter of whether or not each individual local real estate market can support the sale of one store?

I don't see how it matters how many Sears stores there are. Bet it 1 or 500, as long as they are in different cities it should be possible to sell them all. It would be hard to sell all of the houses on the same culdesac, but if you own one home in each city of America and put them up for sale, I don't see how you are saturating the market. It's one house per city, not all in the same city. Surely if a house is up for sale in Houston, and another one in Chicago, and another in New York... those houses don't depress the market for the house you are trying to sell in San Francisco. So why is it different with these retail stores? Can't you sell one location in each city? Why is it considered so hard to sell 500 when they are in different locations/markets?

Exactly, I don't know of anybody off the top of my head that is investing in the retail turnaround. It's an asset play. The asset becomes worth less each quarter. That will continue until the retail turns around. It looks like a retail turnaround play, funded by assets. How is it an asset play if you run out of assets before the turnaround happens?

So if I have a 10m Roth IRA with a cost basis of 300k, she would get 5m in a 50/50 split. But that 5m is probably 150k cost basis, and 4.85m "gains". So the government would tax that gain as a taxable withdrawal.... and at 50% tax rate in California, it's probably something like 2.425m in taxes to be paid... so then the courts would likely take more of my assets to help her settle the tax bill. All this despite the tax bill supposedly already having been settled at time of Roth conversion. It's a double tax.

They need to shrink the sqft of the stores faster than the decline in same-store-sales. Then you'd have positive year over year sales comps on a per-sqft basis, even though overall revenues are down. So like if you slash the footprint of each store by 70%, then if sales only drop by 9% it's a positive outcome. I went to the Tesla factory in Fremont this past July. They use only a tiny footprint of that massive automotive plant -- you just see some tarps hanging here and there to partition off the space, and then the rest of the building is this big unlit dark "corner" (you are actually standing in the lit corner and the rest of the building is dark). So can Sears get some office dividers and shut off 1/2 of the store to foot traffic? I can't tell if I'm joking or not. But I guess that is sort of part of the strategy -- maintain a smaller footprint and lease out space in the rest of the store to other retailers. But I suppose that's how you compensate for losing a ton of customers -- shrink the store.

buybacks have been OFF the table for going on two years now. companies that are in Distress don't buy back stock. they conserve cash. I you are burning furniture to heat the house you don't take the welfare check and go buy a new flat screen. well rational people don't. He can show higher losses per share if he retires more stock.

Let's say you go with the Roth, then later get divorced before you are 59.5. Your spouse could wind up getting 1/2 of it. Then, any taxable gains (in the Roth, assuming it appreciated since the conversion) she takes from you will be taxed! So beware the double taxation.

The company is the horse and the CEO/Management is the jockey. If the management has a fine track record, and one invests based on the quality of the management then the stock is called a "jockey stock". You can put a jockey on a bull, and he's not called a "jockey" anymore.

Does that short selling rule even have any teeth? I'm sure if I buy a put the professional options trader is shorting the stock to hedge. So if I write calls and use proceeds to buy puts, aren't I in effect shorting the stock? Even though shorting is banned?

I'm a bit curious about the situation on Tuesday when short selling comes back. On the other had, the price is holding up remarkably well today with 7+ million shares being dumped. I don't see how the short sellers are going to top that. Plus, if you are still long on Tuesday at the open you have some grit indeed -- so perhaps the longs will be done selling by then.

Hey, I find if I don't discuss my thoughts on an investment I'm missing out on smarter people cautioning me about doing something stupid. It's a good sounding board. Lose/lose situation IMO.

So apparently there is a short selling restriction in effect for SHLD from Jan 10th until Jan 13th. Why? What are the reasons for that?

I know I've paid a few hundred bucks into the "Donations" bucket over time. I figure if you all did that, he'd have a very solid income of a few hundred thousand a year.

I think he was out long ago. Well... if only I fully learned my lesson the first time.

Yes, but as I mentioned to Cardboard and Muscleman early today, I got out of my common and calls and wrote some 2015 $45 strike puts. So I'll own the stock at a cost basis of $34 or so. It will be a 10% position if that assignment happens. I don't want to be in the stock long term, but I'm suckered in by the high volatility. Seems pretty stupid since I know exactly what is wrong about that.

“There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?” “I haven't seen anything like this since the Anita Bryant concert."

My reasoning was that BAC options were relatively more expensive due to the stock being depressed by "uncertainty". Lifting of uncertainty would lead to upwards price volatility, hence the larger volatility premium. I never buy options because they are "cheaper than they should be". That's something I definitely never do. I only buy them for non-recourse leverage on a rising stock price. There is no other reason for me buying them. I preferred BofA because I thought the stock would go up faster. I certainly didn't choose it because the leverage was more expensive. What did the market already price in? The stock was at $12 10 months ago and now it's at $16.60. That's $4.60 a share appreciation and it only cost $1.20 for the at-the-money put that is expiring next week. The successive put (the $12 strike 2015) now only costs 31 cents. So now only 2.65% per year going forward (and it will drop further for future years as the stock rises).

Take the stock price of $44. Subtract off $12 for the price of the call. That leaves you with $32. The compound rate at which $32 grows to $45 will be the cost of leverage. Let me explain: it won't be until you exceed $45 that you have any gain at all -- therefore, the rate at which $32 grows to $45 will be the cost of leverage. That answers both questions above. It not only accounts for the fact that the interest was paid upfront, but it also accounts for the fact that the strike price ($45) is higher than the current market price.

So we are going to be browsing while we are driving? :o Browsing while driving? Of course. The Tesla Model S has a browser and it's great for the car. Very convenient.