Circuit City, you are not alone- said Best Buy

It was Forbes magazine's "Company of the Year 2004" and then it made in to the Fortune's List of Most Admired Companies in 2006. It survived the financial catastrophe after 2007 unlike its rival Circuit City, but seemingly it does not want to leave its pal- Circuit City alone.

Consumer spending has been above the levels businesses saw in 2008-2009. As per reliable sources, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales of the year 2011 were up by 26% as compared to the year 2010. These all favor the prosperity of the retailers like Best Buy. But that is not the fact. Financial statements and stock performance of Best Buy deliver the different and dubious story.

Source: Yahoo! Finance

Best Buy is losing their support in the equity markets."Going out of the business" is a probability after 2-3 years and no one is able to put that out of the question. But why only Best Buy? My only explicable answer is:  "the fierce competition" from diversified retailers who have many other things to offer unlike Best Buy. Free shipping, heavy discounts and extended season of the deals cause only one thing and that is shrinking Best Buy's margins. I have no specific thing in my mind which Best Buy can do to come out of this misery, but if they are not able to do anything revolutionary, those shrinking margins will eventually burn all cash.

Few days ago, I read an article on Amazon, which was considered to be "Online store of Best Buy". I could not deny with that, could you? Because that sums up everything here...

How long can you put on your 3D glasses?

When I graduated from high school, I and one of my friends went for IMAX 3D "show". I did not write "movie" because it was a 30 minutes educational/ informative documentary which we always find here in museums. It was expensive. And rare! Times have changed. Now every Friday, we get at least one movie in 3D to spend our wealth on.

Before 3-4 years, when releasing movies in 3D was not as normal as it is now, it started to change the definition of movie watching on the big screens. Stumbling Regal Entertainment Group & AMC Theatres during the painful recession got some room to breathe. Rapid rise of 3D movies boost the earnings for Regal Group, RealD and the hopes for an IPO for AMC. Entertainment sector was almost back on the track with the 3D hits like Toy Story 3, Avatar, Transformers and Harry Potter. Then AMC postponed their IPO plans. Why?

• 3D Burnout- Excess leads to an destruction. Well said! Burnout is the term often used during mortgage refinancing phase for prepayments. When rates are low, you refinance the loan by prepayments. After few years, when rates become lower again, you have nothing much left to refinance. Same applies here. 3D movies and its craze cannot be placed in the category of sustainable items.
• Online movie providers- Ah! Internet is killing everyone. Surge in the paid subscription based online movie providers like Netflix, Amazon, YouTube have clearly staged their competition with these entertainment giants.
• 3D TVs- Dance until music stops. And that is the reason why we can see the brand new isle of 3D TVs at Best Buy or Wal-Mart stores. 

RealD does many innovative things. It recently launches "Wimbledon 3D" for 2011 Grand Slam. Beautiful. Wimbledon 2011 is still in progress, but still RealD stock is suffering today. Why? It is because of less than expected, not poor, box-office performance of Cars 2 which also released in 3D during last weekend. It is a lovely example of positive correlation, isn't it?

Let's see how long we are able to witness the entertainment industry's fight against sustainability and volatility.

Tumbling WMT is healthy sign for the economy, isn't it?

We were given fictitious $250,000 to invest in 5 securities by our professor during one of the electives of the grad school. Investment Analysis it was. The objective of our portfolio was to preserve our capital. Those few lucky securities chosen by us were WMT, FDO and healthy weight on treasury bills. Based on our security selection and objective, I wonder any one cannot assume what period it was. Right? Yes, it was the midst of catastrophic recession which started in the 2007.

The best performance of WMT and the worst performance of NASDAQ Composite Index relative to each other during last 5 years, took place during the recessionary period. And that is the reason why we love to consider WMT as a recession-proof stock. But if we observe the charts now, NASDAQ composite and other market indices are quickly approaching to the higher returns. These are the signs of early expansion which are not preferred by discount stores like Wal-Mart who have been reporting consecutive decline in sales. Their stock is pretty much down from where it was during the great recession. If that is not enough, recent hike in gas prices and inflation have worsened  the outlook for the discount stores.

Wal-Mart has been trying various strategies to regain their momentum despite of negative correlation with the markets:

• Recently, they have announced to acquire Kosmix which discovers social content by topic. This acquisition may bring Wal-Mart to the new age of social media influence on electronic and mobile commerce. When a retail mammoth taps the Silicon Valley, it has to be something strategic. And these are the impediments behind the expansion of WalmartLabs. 
• Few days ago, they tested their online grocery store. This may have been game changing event if consumers easily adapt to this service. It can definitely give Wal-Mart some edge over its peers.
• After successful entry in the Chicago market in the 2006, Wal-Mart began to think over the New York City market which has high barriers for entry. And based on poll results in the early 2011, New Yorkers showed positive response to embrace Wal-Mart.

... and if these help them perform well and beat the market, do we have to remove WMT from the list of those recession-proof stocks?