Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of shoe retailer DSW (NYSE: DSW) were laced up and off to the races today, gaining as much as 18% in intraday trading on heavier-than-average volume.

So what: The big news for DSW today is that it announced that it's going to acquire its largest shareholder, Retail Ventures (NYSE: RVI). The acquisition's main benefit is eliminating a lot of the wonkiness that comes along with having a public company (Retail Ventures) whose only business is owning shares of another public company (DSW). More specifically, the deal will eliminate the public-company expenses that RVI pays, reduce DSW's total share count, allow DSW to take advantage of $350 million in net operating losses and other tax credits, and generally make corporate actions easier for DSW.

Now what: While parsing this curious deal may be the bigger news, it'd be a mistake to overlook some other positive notes from DSW. The company said that same-store sales for the fourth quarter soared 14.9% after increasing 12.9% last year. Management also raised its earnings guidance for its fiscal 2010 from a range of $2.30 to $2.40 to a range of $2.38 to $2.42.

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