bby

Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD), a retailer whose competitive colleagues include Target (NYSE: TGT), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), wants to improve its brand equity and find a new path to growth. As such, it's willing to employ all kinds of initiatives, especially ones that will form a nice image with the consumer during this dreadful economic contraction.

According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Sears is trying out a program that offers protection against the risk of investing in an expensive appliance during a time when job security is not as secure as it used to be.

The program will run for a specified time period beginning next week, and the basic gist is this: buy an appliance priced $399 or higher on a Sears credit card and, and if you lose your job, Sears will credit one twelfth of the cost every month. Still no job after one year? Keep the appliance, your debt will be forgiven.

Last week, Best Buy Inc. (NYSE: BBY) CEO Brad Anderson ceded the throne to 24-year Best Buy vet Brian Dunn, who took over as CEO. Dunn, who started with the largest consumer electronics chain in the U.S. by belting out the theme to Miami Vice to amp up home theater sales in the 1980s, has stated that he wants to "connect" every consumer that steps inside Best Buy's doors. That is, make sure wireless phones, PCs, and home theater become the chain's biggest opportunities. In other words, take advantage of the "three screens of opportunity."

Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) Q2 earnings were in line with expectations but sales beat.
• Best Buy Inc. (NYSE: BBY) beat earnings estimates for Q1, but on horrible metrics, sending shares lower.
• Carnival Corp. (NYSE: CCL) lower Q2 earnings beat expectations and previous guidance, boosting shares.
• CarMax Inc. (NYSE: KMX) Q1 profit and sales dropped, but still beat expectations, sending shares higher.
• Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) posted a smaller-than-expected Q2 net loss and shares rose.

• Kiplinger's suggests: Diageo (NYSE: DEO), the seller of such brands as Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Guinness and José Cuervo. Diageo has held up better than most during the recession -- thanks to a balanced portfolio of products, with higher exposure to mid-price, mainstream brands and less exposure to ultra-premium brands. The shares look reasonably priced. At $56.01, Diageo trades at 15 times estimated June 2009 earnings of $3.82 a share. The stock yields 2.8%.

• Another to consider: Molson Coors (NYSE: TAP), the seller of such brands as Coors, Blue Moon, Pilsner and Rickard's. Beer, probably even more so than hard liquor is supposed to hold better during a recession given the cheaper price point. The company's recent quarterly profits more than doubled. The shares trade at 13 times forward earnings of $3.33 and yield 2.2%.

Best Buy Inc. (NYSE: BBY) has seen resurgent competition from mass retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT); are the employees of either retailer better? Best Buy seems to think so. Some of the newer advertising indicates that Best Buy employees are better at helping customers than Wal-Mart employees.

Although Wal-Mart has greatly enhanced the consumer electronics sections of its supercenter locations in the last 18 months, do the employees really know the ins and outs of all the new technology? Wal-Mart seems to really want to step up its competitiveness against Best Buy and others, but does it have the backbone to do so outside of just the products?

But, according to that same source, Best Buy has beaten the analysts at their game in the last two quarters. If you ask me, I think the company has a good chance of beating the forecast yet again. With all the euphoria in the equities market as of late, and with all the talk about the recession possibly coming to an end late this year, I feel that consumers must have been in a better mood in the most recent quarter. And one would assume a big name like Best Buy would get its share of the traffic.

With the recession still in full swing these days, retailers continue to try and entice consumers into stores with discounts, special programs and new and improved gimmicks to ensure sales don't decline to drastically. So, in that sense, does it sound logical that some retailers are actually opening new stores? In some ways this may actually make sense, as long as you still to small, efficient and highly profitable.

OfficeMax, Inc. (NYSE: OMX), Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) and others are opening concept stores with a very limited selection of items in some markets and areas where full-size stores would be a huge risk. Best Buy has it Best Buy Mobile concept stores filled with high-margin wireless accessories and commissioned wireless handset and contract sales, and OfficeMax is launching stores with a selection of extremely popular items in stores as small as 2,000 square feet.

Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) is widely assumed to be the biggest beneficiary of the downfall of Circuit City, but Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) is looking to crash that party. "Circuit City's business is up for grabs right now and we expect to get our share," Gary Severson, Wal-Mart's senior vice president of home entertainment, told (subscription required) the Wall Street Journal.

Companies like Nintendo and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) will get their own in-store displays, and Wal-Mart will also be revamping its electronics departments to create a more open and interactive Best Buy-like shopping experience. Wal-Mart has been trying to move upmarket in the consumer electronics business for years, and offering Palm's soon to be released Pre smart phone is another part of that strategy.

Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) will be ushering in Brian Dunn as its new CEO next month. Dunn, a company veteran, has some solid plans to keep the largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S. afloat throughout the ongoing economic recession.

But before that happens, current CEO Brad Anderson won't be going out with a bang. A pay bang, that is.