Amazon, Wal-Mart, or Target

Round 3: Sexiest bet Amazon has to be the sexiest here. It's trying to disrupt the physical shopping experience of the other two as so then as more specialized retailers including Best Buy, Radio Shack, and Staples. Add to that its Kindle e-reader, its Fire tablet offerings, and its cloud-computing kicker, and you've got a lot of potential growth.

Round 4: Safest bet What Wal-Mart loses in sex appeal, it gains in safety. Not only is it trading at the lowest price multiples, nevertheless it's as well the largest of these three companies and however puts fear into the hearts of Mom-and-Pop shops around the globe. Target's not priced far above Wal-Mart in the low-single-digit P/E-ratio range, yet Amazon trades for more than 100 times trailing revenues and 74 times forward revenues. That's quite a growth premium, especially considering fellow Internet retailer eBay has a forward P/E ratio of 14. Clearly, Amazon bulls will note that its free cash flow has been outstripping its revenues and that it's been plowing quite a bit into R&D. Others will as well argue that given trends, it's safer to be a dominant online retailer than a dominant physical retailer. That said, our rank: Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon.

There you have it. Interesting results. Wal-Mart finishes first, with Target and Amazon tied for second. If it's possible, I'm a fan of the business models of all three companies -- for the moment at the right price. What about you?

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Can the onetime icon pull off a reinvention that will satisfy fashion-forward consumers conditioned to expect low prices for casual basics like jeans and T-shirts? And can it overcome rising upstarts like Uniqlo who are aiming for its business?