Trying to compare what happened to Sears with Lowe’s is absurd. Like a lot of other retailers, Sears rested on its laurels for decades and failed to adapt to a changing marketplace. Add to that Eddie Lampert basically gutted the company for personal gain. That’s what k–led the company.
Lowe’s will never catch Depot and still needs to make some more changes imo but the home improvement pie is big enough for both companies to continue to do very well.
No matter what the stock does... If this company continues to be run and managed like it is now... It will wind up in the trash
Market Capitalization is a simplistic method based on current stock price and doesn't solely determine the "worth" of a company (for say a merger or acquisition). If that were the case, Home Depot with their current market cap of 310 billion should be worth 2.6 times Lowe's. It's not that simple. Additionally, if a company were to suddenly file for bankruptcy and be forced to liquidate all their assets and settle all their debts (at full value), I can assure you what most would have left over will be nothing close to their previous market cap high.
It's a documented fact that for a long time Sears Holdings Corporation burned through billions upon billions of their cash reserves trying to keep their stock price high (Sears highest stock price was $193 back on April 17, 2007) and had they only invested that money into the actual business they may very well have had a different outcome. Lowe's is in fact following much of that same Sears playbook. And while Lowe's is making investments within the company many would argue that the value of those investment are falling well short of what Lowe's is spending and well behind what Home Depot is consistently accomplishing. Time will ultimately tell who is the leader and who is the follower.
To the genius who posted downthread under @4exa+16ptIOBj—
the market value of a company is not determined by its assets minus liabilities like on a balance sheet. It is determined by the total value of outstanding shares. As of today, Lowe’s is current market capitalization is worth $119.6 BILLION and is trading at all-time highs.
They got a copy when they bought craftsman.
To the poster that stated "Lowes is currently worth over $100 billion" perhaps you should go back and read Lowe's Q1 2020 financials:
https://corporate.lowes.com/sites/lowes-corp/files/quarterly-earnings/q1-2020/q1-2020-financial-statements.pdf
I will help you out, Total assets = $45.832 billion, Total liabilities = $44.116 billion. Doing the math, you are only off by about 98.3 billion. Nice try.
Sears was once worth WAY more than than Lowe's (in adjusted dollars) and for many many years was the single largest retailer in the world. Considering the timing of the post, I believe what the original poster was possibly referring to was the new Lowe's sales specialist incentive plan complete with all the loop holes and sand traps to reduce payouts.
Sears is now a penny stock, Lowes is currently worth over $100 billion. Are you on d–gs?
Elucidate, per favor?