SHLD reported blow out results. http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200611160817DOWJONESDJONLINE000663_FORTUNE5.htm

I note that sales have declined by 3%. Paraphrased from news ......42 per share results was from investment income from derivative deals involving substantial risks.

While I wouldn't want to pooh-pooh the extraordinary performance of the earnings, there is a paradox at hand. Little has been accomplished in increasing traffic in either Kmart/Sears. If one is earning based on risky investment strategies that are far from the core of the underlying businesses, one could say that the core business is being sacrificed (failure to update stores or engage in updated merchandising strategies) to garner additional dollars for another strategy. Maybe I'm looking at it wrongly, and that so long as investors are seeing their share price rise, which it has done handsomely, then such a concern is irrelevant.

Sears is a dog. Their real estate is worth something but the operations are terrible. That being said, they have a lot of cash.

He got approval to use the cash to make "investments". He's not Warren Buffett that's for sure. It will either be a home run or it will blow up.