Sears Holdings Corporation (SHLD) has enjoyed some impressive earnings estimate increases lately, including sharp gains in just the past week.

< ?DART(15);?> The more than 7% advance in its share price today hasn't been near as dramatic, but is enough to make this retailing staple a Zacks #1 Rank Top Performer for Tuesday.

Volume today is approximately 1.476 million, which is slightly above the average of 1.452 million.

Earnings Estimates Soaring

The current profit consensus for the fiscal year ending January 2010 is $2.06 per share. A month ago, the outlook was only 34 cents, marking a more than 500% improvement as 4 of 6 covering analysts revised higher.

That gain includes an advance of more than 36% in just the past 7 days.

Meanwhile, expectations for next fiscal year, ending January 2011, are also on the rise. Estimates are higher

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BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc.'s (BJ) share price has crossed over to oversold territory with a stochastic value of 7.77. The Zacks #1 Rank ("Strong Buy") stock has topped the consensus estimate in each of the last 4 quarters with an average surprise of 3.51%, or 2 cents per share. Analysts have been increasing their full-year earnings estimates, with the consensus up 23 cents over the past 30 days to $2.51 per share.

"BJ" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?Zacks Investment Research

Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) announced fiscal third-quarter earnings that fell short of the consensus due to reduced discretionary spending by consumers, along with a stronger dollar.

The warehouse club operator reported earnings of 48 cents per share, missing the consensus forecast by 6 cents. Profit was 67 cents in the same period of fiscal 2008.

Revenue fell 5% to $15.8 billion as same-store sales declined 5% in the US and 12% in International markets.

The full-year consensus estimate is down 2 cents over the past 2 months to $2.49 per share.

COST, a Zacks #3 Rank ("Hold") stock, has slipped 4% today on volume of approximately 3.5 million, compared to average daily volume of about 5.5 million.

Meanwhile, Costco's smaller rival, BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. (BJ) reported first-quarter earnings of 45 cents per share last week, narrowly beating the average forecast by a penny. BJ also boosted

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Crude Rises Above $62/Barrel; Opel Courtship Down to Three; Unibanco CEO: 4% Second-Half GDP for Brazil; Target and BJ’s Beat Expectations; Obama To Sign Credit Card “Bill of Rights”; California Could Go Broke After Voters Reject Plan; Wall Street Won’t Rehire Many Workers; Indiana Pension Funds File to Block Chrysler Bankruptcy Sale

Crude oil yesterday (Wednesday) rose above $62 a barrel, a six-month high, after the U.S. government released a report that showed inventories fell below forecasts. “The big drops in both crude and gasoline are very bullish,” Nauman Barakat, senior vice president of energy at Macquarie Futures USA Inc., told Bloomberg. “If people were surprised by how fast crude oil moved from $50 to $60, they will be really shocked by how quickly the market will hit $70.”...

BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. (BJ) reported first-quarter profit this morning that topped the consensus estimate by a penny as cash-strapped shoppers continued to visit its stores for cheaper deals on food and basic amenities. Earnings came in at 45 cents per share, compared with a profit of 29 cents in the year-ago period.

Sales climbed 0.2% to $2.26 billion. However, comparable club sales fell 1.5%, which included a 9% hit from gasoline sales. For fiscal 2010, this Zacks #1 Rank ("Strong Buy") company sees earnings in the range of $2.44 to $2.54 per share, up from its May forecast of $2.42 to $2.52. The last month has seen upward revisions by 8 analysts out of 9, sending the average forecast higher by 22 cents to $2.50 per share.

Shares are down less than 2% today on volume of 1.4 million shares, against the daily average of 1.3 million.

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - May 20, 2009 - Kevin Matras screens for companies with Sales Growth that is greater than their Earnings Growth. Stocks in this week's article include AES Corporation (AES), BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc. (BJ), CGI Group, Inc. (GIB), Mediacomm Communications Corporation (MCCC) and Ralcorp Holdings (RAH). Click here for the full story exclusively on Zacks.com: http://at.zacks.com/?id=109.

Screen of the Week written by Kevin Matras of Zacks Investment Research:

Lately, I've been running screens to try and assess a company's real value.

The Price to Earnings ratio (P/E) is probably the most common ratio in determining whether a company is under or overvalued.

However, the Price to Cash Flow (P/CF) is another great ratio to do just that.

Cash, of course, is vital to a company's financial health. Especially

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Lately, I've been running screens to try and assess a company's real value.

The Price to Earnings ratio (P/E) is probably the most common ratio in determining whether a company is under or overvalued.

However, the Price to Cash Flow (P/CF) is another great ratio to do just that.

Cash, of course, is vital to a company's financial health. Especially nowadays, cash is needed to finance operations, invest in the business, etc.

And cash can't really be manipulated on the income statement like earnings can.

The reason why some like this measurement better than the P/E ratio is because the net income of the cash flow portion rightly adds depreciation and amortization back in, since these are not cash expenditures.

Whereas the net income that goes into the earnings portion of the P/E ratio does not include either expense, thus artificially reducing the income and skewing the P/E ratio.

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Those elusive “green shoots” that economic optimists had been digging up lately were buried under disappointing data from the Commerce Department in Washington yesterday (Wednesday) when it was revealed that retail sales in the unexpectedly dropped in April.

Sales at U.S. retailers dropped 0.4%, the eighth monthly decline in the last 10 months, following a revised 1.3% drop in March that was larger than previously estimated.  Excluding auto dealers, sales fell 0.5%

Economists had expected an increase of 0.5% to 1.0%.  Since July, retail sales have shown increases only in January and February, and those were attributed to post-holiday sales.

The disappointing numbers indicate surging unemployment and the worst housing market in decades could temper consumers’ appetite for spending for years, analysts said. As long as consumer spending is muted, which accounts for about 70% of all economic activity, any recovery from the worst recession in over 50 years is likely to

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Here are the stocks added to the Zacks #1 Rank ("strong buy") List today:

Air Methods Corp (AIRM) Big Lots Inc (BIG) BJ's Wholesale Club Inc (BJ) Brookdale Senior Living Inc (BKD) Caribou Coffee Company Inc (CBOU) Churchill Downs Inc (CHDN) Crosstex Energy Inc (XTXI) Fushi Copperweld Inc (FSIN) Gammon Gold Inc (GRS) Geokinetics Inc (GOK) Greenlight Capital Re Ltd (GLRE) Hansen Natural Corp (HANS) Herley Industries Inc (HRLY) Memsic Inc (MEMS) National Grid Plc (NGG) RadioShack Corp (RSH) Santarus Inc (SNTS) Trinity Biotech Plc (TRIB) Virgin Mobile USA Inc (VM) View the entire Zacks #1 Rank List.

"AIRM" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?"BIG" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?"BJ" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?"BKD" Free Stock ...

Highlighted stocks include Amazon.com (AMZN), BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. (BJ), Carter's Inc. (CRI), Men's Wearhouse (MW) and Target Corporation (TGT)

Initial holiday sales are encouraging, though it is questionable whether the momentum will last or if the discounts will end up hurting profits.

The National Retail Federation estimated that shoppers spent an average of $373.57 over Thanksgiving weekend, an increase of 7.2%. Store traffic was higher as well at 172 million, versus 147 million last year.

comScore calculated that Cyber Monday sales totaled $846 million, a 15% increase over 2007. Nielsen Online said that Monday traffic to online retail web sites was 10% higher.

For both traditional and online retailers, discounts were the name of the game. Stores marked down everything from GPS devices to Jimmy Choo shoes. And many observers, including Zacks' Senior Retail Analyst Rob Plaza, believe retailers will

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