A week after trying a Hail Mary pass of closing stores and seeking to renegotiate leases, Circuit City has succumbed to the inevitable and filed for bankruptcy protection.

The electronics chain, battered by a drop-off in consumer spending and fierce competition from Wal-Mart and Best Buy, is the latest big retailer to file for bankruptcy. Mervyns, Linens 'n Things, Levitz, Sharper Image, and Lillian Vernon have all filed for Chapter 11 this year.

What is unusual about the wave of filings is how many retailers decided that they could not survive through the holiday shopping season—the busiest and, for many retailers, the only profitable time of the year. January is typically the time when troubled retailers filed for bankruptcy.

The woes of Circuit City underscore how bleak the picture is for retailers. The October employment report on Friday showed that more than 38,000 jobs in retail were lost last month.

Circuit City, founded in Richmond, Virginia, in 1949, listed $3.4 billion in assets and $2.32 billion in liabilities in its Chapter 11 petition in the federal bankruptcy court in Richmond.

Last week, the chain announced it would close 155 stores in the United States and "aggressively" renegotiate leases on some of the remaining 566 stores with the aim of lowering rents.

Those steps were not enough.

"Despite aggressive efforts to secure vendor support, vendor concerns about the company's liquidity and ability to pay for its purchases in this difficult economic climate have escalated considerably," the company said in a statement. "Faced with the need to secure ongoing vendor support and to ensure adequate merchandise flow to stores during the important holiday season, the company has determined that it would be in the best interest of its stakeholders to file for reorganization relief under Chapter 11."