For years I have wondered why Sears chose not to sell Craftsman tools on Amazon's web site. It just seemed like an obvious move to monetize a brand name they owned, given that their own stores are slowly disappearing due to customer disinterest. Earlier this year Sears sold the brand to Stanley Black and Decker to raise much-needed capital, and I suspect it is only a matter of time before the new owner utilizes Amazon to boost market share for the reputable Craftsman brand.

Yesterday the financial markets reacted quite strongly to the news that Sears will now sell Kenmore products on Amazon (the company still owns the Kenmore and Diehard brand names). Sears and Amazon rallied, while shares of competitors like Home Depot, Lowe's, and Whirlpool fell sharply.

Unlike the Craftsman brand, which I believe resonates with most every demographic, Kenmore seems like an odd fit for Amazon. Clearly, Sears is feeling the pressure to stabilize its business and the country's largest e-commerce retailer would seem to be a logical place to turn.

The problem is that the Kenmore brand has a loyal customer base, but those people are largely older, whose families have shopped at Sears for appliances for multiple generations and have come to trust the brand. In other words, the only customers Sears has left that shop in their physical stores, and more importantly, the last people who are going to consider buying a washer and dryer on Amazon.

Wall Street's knee-jerk reaction (granted, most likely from computers, not humans) was to flee from the big box appliance retailers. This appears overdone because appliances only represent a small proportion of revenue at those chains, and they should be more Amazon-proof than many other bricks and mortar companies. The odds of this news materially impacting a Best Buy, Home Depot, or Lowe's is minuscule, in my view. And the idea that the Kenmore brand is going to be reborn merely due to it being more prominent on Amazon's site is wishful thinking. As a result, yesterday's stock moves are likely to be short-lived, and they have provided investors with an opportunity.

Full Disclosure: Long shares of Amazon, Lowe's, as well as Sears's corporate bonds that mature in 2018, at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time.