The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

1. Night and Day

RadioShack (RSH Quote) is up to its old tricks.

Shares in the Fort Worth, Texas, electronics retailer fell this week after its latest round of lousy numbers. RadioShack said sales in stores open at least a year dropped 9.6% from a year ago in the third quarter, even as cell-phone sales have skyrocketed elsewhere. A $16 million quarterly loss surprised analysts.

But then, surprises are nothing new at RadioShack. The company hired retail veteran Julian Day as its turnaround CEO back in July, despite his seeming lack of electronics-industry experience. Perhaps RadioShack was just desperate to shake the shadow of former CEO Dave Edmondson, who left under a cloud back in February.

"We really just shot ourselves in the head in the first quarter," Edmondson said in one memorable performance at a Merrill Lynch conference last year. "Some of [the reasons] were related to very tough comps that we are going against in wireless, but I am not going to make any excuses."

There, at least, it's clear that Day will be making a clean break with the past. Wall Street seems curious to see how he'll keep RadioShack from going the way of the Wiz, the New York-area electronics chain whose stores closed for good back in 2003.

But Day indicates it's too early to stew over little details like that.

"Though too early in the management transition to see fundamental change in business trends, RadioShack made some important achievements in Q3 toward improving its operations," Day said in a Wednesday morning press release. "During the quarter, we streamlined costs; better aligned people and roles; and strengthened our balance sheet."

And reaffirmed RadioShack's reputation as a hopeless bumbler.

Dumb-o-Meter score: 91. "Capital will be allocated to projects which will yield the highest demonstrable return," Day revealed. What a novel concept.

To watch Colin Barr's video take of this column, click here.