Results: Sears to close stores even faster after 'challenging' holiday season

Sears keeps pruning its business in a years-long makeover, a bid to transform itself from a 123-year-old retail store into a nimble, 21st century operator. Patience appears to be wearing thin. Shares slid early Tuesday to 13-year lows after the company said it would accelerate the closure of some of its stores following a "challenging" holiday season. The company's stock is down 20 percent this year, and they've been cut in half in the past 12 months. "We will accelerate the closing of unprofitable stores, including, but not limited to, roughly 50 stores that we recently announced would be closing in the next few months," Sears said in a statement Tuesday. "We also intend to continue to evaluate and optimize our cost structure, including optimizing store-level marketing expenditures and overall staffing levels, and we will be taking action to reduce our fixed costs, and to improve our inventory management and gross margin realization."