Friday, January 16, 2009
Fall of the Two Cities (Citi another new low & Circuit City down 75%+ today)
Many people are still oblivious to how bad things are getting. For those who would like to follow closely, Circuit City is delisted from the NYSE:CC and and the new ticker is PNK: CCTYQ.
(1) In a previous article, our recent interview identified that the conditions at Citigroup and banks are worsening on a daily basis.
(2) Prior to the Christmas holidays (storewide bankruptcy) is covered in an earlier report.
(3) Bloomberg mentions that Circuit City started in 1949 and local customer Tom Kinley comments on the liquidation process (this could be happening to more businesses in the future).
(4) What is America thinking? Glendale, CA ; Buena Park, CA; Las Vegas, CA; Gurnee, IL (near Chicago); Atlanta, GA; Brooklyn, NY (claims for false advertising).
(5) The Street.com tries to sell you the goods and even in November ... they would say, look at the potential turnaround story. This page really serves more as an advertising platform regardless of the content (see all the ads where no one is buying the advertising space ... only Street.com is buying their own spaces with their own products). Here is the clip in case it gets deleted.
We currently have exclusive unreleased interviews of the Circuit City community of workers. Everyone was hopeful that the company would hire them back. The hope is now evaporated. Today, the company has filed for a total liquidation of the remaining stores. This was only 20+ days since the store closings indicative of the times we are in. I encourage everyone to read clearly what 567 store closings will mean to 34,000 employees.
The rapidly eroding situation has brought some staggering rewards of casualty for competitors such as Best Buy. But the reality check will be whether these levels of consumer buying are sustainable.