Sears was one of the companies on the original Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. In its hey day, Sears was the go-to retailer for everything from “socks to stocks” (to reflect its ownership of Allstate Insurance and Dean Witter, the brokerage firm). Nowadays, Sears Holdings, the parent of Sears and Kmart, is no longer a retailing powerhouse. In 2012, it ranked 12th (with $34 billion in revenue) among U.S.-based retailers in terms of worldwide sales. In contrast, Wal-Mart’s sales were $454 billion and Costco’s were $89 billion.

As a result of its weak financial performance and the number of stock shares that are held by private — rather than public — investors, this week, S&P announced that Sears would no longer be listed in its 500-stock index. Since some mutual funds and others limit themselves to stocks on the S&P list, this is especially bad news for Sears Holdings.

The company had been listed by S&P for five decades!!!