Talk of Kmart's demise surfaced in Chicago again Friday when Sears Holdings Corp. reported a worse-than-expected 62 percent drop in Sears' fiscal second-quarter earnings.

Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a New York banking and consulting firm, repeated his earlier assertions that Kmart cannot survive fierce competition from faster-growing discounters, the Chicago Sun-Times said.

. "Kmart is finished," he said.

As for Sears, he told the Sun-Times, "I see the company stumbling along without a new (chief executive officer) and without a new vision."