Riight, so if I understand you correctly this part of the Bloomberg article (which admittedly is better than the one I linked) isn't the big deal, it's this: So is that sentiment, in the current environment, the investor wisdom-of-the-crowd that short-term castle-in-the-sky speculation is the way to go when mid to long-term the shit will hit the fan? The root cause is that many of these long-standing chains are overloaded with debt—often from leveraged buyouts led by private equity firms. There are billions in borrowings on the balance sheets of troubled retailers, and sustaining that load is only going to become harder—even for healthy chains.
Until this year, struggling retailers have largely been able to avoid bankruptcy by refinancing to buy more time. But the market has shifted, with the negative view on retail pushing investors to reconsider lending to them.