Twitter, Sears both losing money, but ...

Outlook for one is upbeat; the other, not

Sears is back in the spotlight — and not in a good way — for reporting its ninth straight quarterly loss.

That’s a streak that not many companies can rival.

There are only 11 companies in the broad Russell 1000 index that have posted net losses in all 10 of the past 10 quarters, ac- cording to a USA TODAY analysis of data from S&P Capital IQ.

One of those other perennial losers is none other than socialmedia giant Twitter.

Sears is turning into one of the most hated stocks because the retailer can’t seem to stop losing money.

But Twitter is celebrated even as it bleeds red ink for a longer period of time. The difference, though, is the trajectory and expectations for the future.

Last week, Sears announced a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss, and its losses are expected to continue every year until at least 2019, says S&P Capital IQ. The troubled retailer’s latest bombshell sent shares of Sears down 7% the day the news came out.

But the stock’s troubles go back much further. Sears has been a bad place for investors to be for years now. Sears is down 40% in the past three years, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 is up 73%.

Twitter’s situation is not nearly as dire.

Since going public last November, Twitter shares have soared, stumbled and recovered, and now at $45.98, are just above where they closed their first day of trading.

While Twitter loses money on a net basis, much of the reason for the red ink has to do with charges connected with the initial public offering, including those linked with stock option exercises.

Including all those “extraordinary” costs, for instance, Twitter lost 24 cents a share in the second quarter.

But here’s where things get more interesting.

Excluding those costs, Twitter made 2 cents a share, topping expectations in the second quarter. And analysts see Twitter turning a profit on an adjusted basis this year and on a non-adjusted basis in 2017.

Granted, that’s far away, but at least the bottom line is moving in the right direction.

That seems to be making investors much happier over the past three months, as shares of Twitter are up 42%, blowing away the S&P 500’s 5.6% gain during that time.

While extended profitless periods are never good, the difference between Sears and Twitter makes it clear that not all losing streaks are created equally.