Since Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU) posted its first-quarter earnings a week ago, the share price has dropped from $82.28 to $66.15 at last Friday’s close. That is down nearly 20% — and the company beat estimates for both earnings per share and revenues.

News that the company’s CEO, Christine Day, was leaving as soon as a replacement could be found killed the share price. The drop may have less to do with Day’s leaving than it does with the uncertainty about who the company will bring in next. Day took over at Lululemon in 2008 and the company’s share price has risen more than 350% since then, even including last week’s collapse.

From an investor’s point of view, Day presided over a massive expansion of the company’s business. The company had just 81 stores worldwide at the end of February 2008, compared with more than 200 today. Revenue has grown from about $275 million annually to $1.37 billion.

Can anyone continue that growth path? Could Day herself have done it? Chances are it wouldn’t have gone on at that pace, no matter what Day chose to do.

Analysts worry about the management transition and about whether the company can deliver on new products in a timely fashion. There has been talk that the company is looking at adding a line of men’s yoga clothing, but that is neither guaranteed to happen nor guaranteed to succeed. And there has to be a limit to what women will pay for yoga pants, right?

Shares of Lululemon are down another 1.5%, at $65.20 in a 52-week range of $52.20 to $82.50.

Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW) said this morning that it has concluded an asset purchase agreement to acquire the majority of the assets of Orchard Supply Hardware Stores Corp. (NASDAQ: OSH) for $205 million plus the “assumption of payables owed to nearly all of Orchard’s supplier partners.” Orchard Supply is based in San Jose, Calif., and operates 91 neighborhood hardware and garden stores primarily in large metropolitan areas in that state.

Orchard Supply came public in January 2012, as a spin-off from Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD). The initial public offering price was $25 a share and shares closed on Friday at $1.88. The company has about 6.03 million shares outstanding. Accounts payable at the end of February totaled $39.66 million, and Orchard had $262.31 million in short/current long-term debt. The company’s long-term debt totaled $46.95 million.

Last week, Orchard’s largest shareholder, Fairholme Capital, sold its entire 12.5% stake in the company, and there was a report that it had hired a firm to assist with a prepackaged bankruptcy plan. Lowe’s saved the day, but the cost to Orchard’s shareholders has been steep.

Shares of Orchard Supply are up 11.7%, at $2.10 in a 52-week range of $1.85 to $20.41. Shares of Lowe’s are up about 1.1%, at $41.63 in a 52-week range of $24.76 to $43.84.

For the full year, Smithfield reported adjusted EPS of $1.80, compared with EPS of $2.59 in the same period a year ago. The consensus estimate called for EPS of $2.00.

None of this really matters, of course, given that Smithfield has agreed to be acquired by China’s Shuanghui International Holdings for $7.1 billion, including debt ($34 per share). The transaction is expected to close in the last half of this year, following review by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), among many others. Nothing else matters now.

Shares are down fractionally in premarket trading this morning, at $32.81, in a 52-week range of $17.55 to $33.96.

The companies reported:

Microsoft Corp. and Best Buy Co. Inc. today announced a strategic partnership to create the Windows Store only at Best Buy. The comprehensive store-within-a-store will be in 500 Best Buy locations across the United States and in more than 100 Best Buy and Future Shop locations in Canada.

Ranging in size from 1,500 square feet to 2,200 square feet, the Windows Store will be the premier destination for consumers to see, try, compare and purchase a range of products and accessories, including Windows-based tablets and PCs, Windows Phones, Microsoft Office, Xbox, and more. Each store will feature an innovation space highlighting a variety of Windows scenarios across devices; a showcase section with the latest Windows-based PC form factors such as ultrabooks, convertibles, detachables and all-in-ones — including portable devices; and a standalone area featuring Microsoft Surface.

Microsoft believes that a direct conduit to consumers that allows them to experience Windows 8 in the flesh, along with some of its hardware products, will make sales of the products grow. Unfortunately, Best Buy continues to struggle to get growth in the number of customers it brings in its door, which makes it a poor choice for the distribution of consumer electronics. Microsoft would have been better to team with Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), which has crushed Best Buy in the market. However, the world’s largest e-commerce company competes with Microsoft across a broad spectrum of products and services, so the two are best viewed as enemies.

Of course, there is no evidence that more exposure for Windows 8 will help sales. Consumers have rejected it as too difficult to use and too foreign to earlier versions of the operating system. A presence within one large retailer will not help that.

Microsoft continues to have visions that the version of Windows that runs on smartphones will take market share from the dominant Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iOS. Demonstrations of Windows-powered phones at Best Buy are unlikely to help it gain share. Once again, consumers simply prefer the Android and the Apple systems. The chance for more customers to sample Windows will not solve that.

Finally, the Microsoft store will be lost inside of Best Buy, where hundreds of products are sold already, many from direct competitors to Redmond. Consumers will get to see, in the flesh, why the prefer products that are non-Microsoft. Putting its products side by side with better alternatives is a mistake.

Today’s news has been confirmed in a press release. The new strategic partnership will create a Windows Store at Best Buy in roughly 500 U.S. Best Buy stores. Another 100 or more Best Buy and Future Shop locations in Canada will also get the stores. All in all, that will be 600 stores.

The alliance will add more than 1,200 Best Buy Microsoft-trained sales associates for the effort as well. As far as how large these stores will be, the release is indicating that these stores will be approximately 1,500 to 2,200 square feet. Consumers inside of Best Buy will get to see and sample a range of products and accessories: Windows-based tablets and PCs, Windows Phones, Microsoft Office, Xbox, and more.

Best Buy shares have already been recovering in 2013 after a long slow decline. Shares are up 0.6% at $27.04 so far after this news broke and the 52-week trading range is $11.20 to $28.37.

While a 2.2% dividend yield might not sound like a very high dividend for those who chase the high dividend yields in riskier sectors, that is still a higher yield than 8 of the 30 Dow Jones Industrial Average components pay right now. IndexArb.com represents that the aggregate S&P 500 dividend yield is 2.26% and that the aggregate DJIA yield is 2.66%. All of a sudden a 2.18% dividend sounds rather ambitious considering that the company is a new IPO. You have to remember that management of public companies often sets their dividend payments up to where it is sustainable in future weak business cycles and to where a dividend can be grown in normal cycles.

Where this dividend will not sound great is when you compare the yield to the 6% or so paid by Cedar Fair L.P. (NYSE: FUN). That dividend was raised in 2013 by more than 50%. Six Flags Entertainment Corp. (NYSE: SIX) yields 4.7%. The common stock dividend is payable on July 1, 2013 to stockholders of record at the close of business on June 20, 2013.

SeaWorld shares closed down 1.1% at $36.61 and its post-IPO trading range is $30.26 to $39.65. The current consensus SeaWorld share price target is $41.13.

On the surface it might seem like a stretch that a video game console could disrupt PC operating system sales. You have to look beyond the surface here. One thing that has happened is declining PC sales, and some of the decline was tied to a complicated and unfamiliar Windows 8 operating system that was so different from other operating system launches. There was not even a “Start Button,” which Windows users have grown used to.

Most video game consoles sell for $399 or even less, yet Microsoft wants $499 for the console refresh. It is true that the Xbox One will act as a media and communications center for your living room for games, movies, music, TV programming, pictures, communication and the Web, so it goes well above and beyond prior video game systems. It interacts with all forms of devices as well. The problem is that this may be one more excuse for consumers to delay buying a replacement, bulky desktop or a laptop PC.

The trend into tablets has acted as a serious PC-sales killer. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) created this sector, and the tablet sales have been so good that even Mac sales arguably have been hurt. If consumers can spend $399 or $499, they are less likely to go out and spend $799 or even well over $1,000 on a new PC.

Another issue is that the $499 price for the Xbox One may open the door for Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) to win market share. The PS4 gaming system also launches later this year, but at a price of $399. Sony’s policy toward used games is also clear and consumer-friendly, and it will not require an Internet connection. Both issues and features have been less clear from Microsoft for the Xbox 360.

This argument, or thought, that the Xbox One could hurt Windows 8 and PC sales boils down to price and available money. A $499 price tag for the Xbox One likely is not high enough that dedicated gamers and those addicted to home entertainment will fail to buy the system. The flip side is that the price tag is high enough that consumer electronics consumers may have yet another reason to delay updating their desktops or laptops. That leads to fewer Windows 8 sales.

It will be interesting to see if Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) and Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) will say in late 2013, or early in 2014 after the holiday season, that the new video game consoles were one of the top issues acting as a drag on PC sales. What if it leads to lower PC processor sales for Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) as well? After all, there is always some reason that PC sales projections keep going lower.

Microsoft shares may be down 1.6% at $34.90 in early Tuesday trading, but keep in mind that its shares are up a whopping 32% so far in 2013.

For its part, Dole will form a special committee of its board to consider Murdock’s offer, but chances that it will be found insufficient are pretty unlikely. Dole’s shares closed at $10.20 last night, and even though shares are trading above the offer price they remain nearly 20% off their 52-week high.

Murdock took the company private in 2003 and then took it public again in 2009 at an IPO price of $12.50 a share. His offer this morning pretty much sums up the company’s fortunes since the 2009 IPO.

The last big going-private deal in the food industry occurred in December 2010 when Del Monte Foods was taken private in a $4 billion deal with KKR and its partners. More common are mergers and buyouts, like last year’s ConAgra Foods Inc. (NYSE: CAG) $6.8 billion acquisition of Ralcorp. According to The Food Institute, there were 301 mergers in the food industry in 2012, down 21% from 2011.

The largest deal on the table so far this year is a $4.7 billion offer for the country’s largest pork producer, Smithfield Foods Inc. (NYSE: SFD), by China’s Shuanghui International Holdings. The world’s largest beef producer, Brazil’s JBS S.A., just expanded its poultry business and now leads U.S.-based Tyson Foods Inc. (NYSE: TSN) as the world’s largest poultry producer. JBS also owns a controlling stake in Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. (NASDAQ: PPC).

The Tyson family controls Tyson Foods through its ownership of essentially all of the company’s class B stock, which is valued the same as the class A stock, but carries 10 votes per class B share. The Tyson family owns just 2.53% of the outstanding class A stock, so going private with the company, which has a current market value of around $9 billion, is an expensive but not impossible proposition.

Food prices have been rising, and at least some industry analysts think that inefficiencies in the supply chain are responsible for the hikes. If that is the case, then gaining control now, as Murdock is trying to do, is a smart move for him. Whether it is a good move for other shareholders is certainly arguable.

GM announced ridiculous deals to draw potential Volt buyers. It will try to clear out its 2012 inventory, which should not exist at all, with cash incentives has high as $5,000. At the Chevy website, the 2013 Volt is listed with an incentive of $4,000. And consumers can lease the Volt for as little as $269 a month.

GM is practically giving away the Volt, and it cannot possibly be making money on the car, as a number of experts have pointed out.

The Volt has had problems with its battery in the past, which brought Chevy waves of bad publicity and probably damaged sales. GM likely has kept the Volt on the market because it does not want to abandon the flagship car of what management describes as the future of the industry. However, if the Volt is the future of the largest car manufacturer in the world, the years ahead will be difficult.

The Detroit Free Press reported on the GM decision to slash Volt prices:

Volt sales declined 4.3% in May to 1,607 while industry sales increased 8.2%. Through the first five months of this year, Volt trails both the much more expensive Tesla Model S and the smaller, less-expensive Nissan Leaf.

At one time, GM expected to be building between 60,000 and 100,000 Volts annually, but with sales this year through May of 7,157, that goal has been reassessed.

“We have inventory we want to move to get ready for the 2014 model year, and there is a lot of competition in the marketplace,” GM spokeswoman Michelle Malcho said.

Chevrolet dealers have about 140 days’ supply of Volts, about twice the preferred industry average.

GM already loses money on the Volt and will lose even more as it raises incentives. It costs GM as much as $75,000 to produce a Volt, according to some analysts.

The old rule of thumb for retail workers was that for every $1 that was stolen, another $100 had to be sold just to make up for that loss. A recent post from the National Retail Federation showed that in the last few years organized retail crime has helped to bring on a new threat of store merchandise credit card and gift card fraud. As far as how much this comes to, one NRF figure put the tally of organized retail crime as still costing retailers $30 billion a year.

An NRF infographic showed how much this translates to, but we would use a better comparable metric. Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) generated $27.68 billion in sales last year. If the $30 billion is a real metric, then the organized crime portion of this is large enough that it is absorbing more than Macy’s sells legitimately each year.

Retailers were shown to have said that the percentage of retailers reporting online reselling (eFencing) was true for 72% of retailers and actual fencing of items resold elsewhere had happened to 69% of retailers. Some 48% reported cargo theft, but a whopping 78% reported that they had been victims of gift card and store credit fraud. The top items targeted were listed as baby formula, laundry detergent, energy drinks, high-end denim, allergy medicine, and cell phones.

The NRF said, “Essentially, experienced ‘boosters’ return stolen merchandise without a receipt for the sole purpose of receiving store credit for a gift card, and then turn around and sell that merchandise credit for cash to secondary markets.”

Fraud and loss prevention player Checkpoint Systems, Inc. (NYSE: CKP) referred to organized retail theft being a larger and larger piece of the $104 billion “global shrink challenge” and that was a 2008 figure. It has even recently launched a new product aimed to detect the most common types of in-store theft.

Having personally had to intervene before in a retail shoplifting incident where the loss prevention individual could not restrain a thief alone, this is an issue that has literally hit home for yours truly. Under just about any circumstance, $30 billion is a huge number. What is often more sad than anything is that the police often turn a cheek here because the legal system is chewed up fighting more serious cases that involve violence and other more widespread crime and fraud.