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Retail

JC Penney (JCP): The Real Face Of Retail

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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R218533_855025_2Anyone looking at Wal-Mart’s (WMT) results would have have been terribly misled about the state of American retail.

JC Penney (JCP) showed what retail really looks like in a recession. JPC reported earnings per share from continuing operations of $0.55 for the third quarter ended Nov. 1, 2008, compared with $1.17 in last year’s third quarter. Net income for the 2008 third quarter was $124 million versus $261 million last year.

During the third quarter, total sales decreased 8.7%. Comparable store sales decreased 10.1%, which was in line with the company’s revised guidance for a low-double digit decrease.

The curren quarter is even worse, much worse.

Sales for Q4 will drop decrease 7% to 9%. Comparable store sales will be off decrease 9% to 11%.

Penney is probably a good proxy for retail in general. It has a large store base and a middle-of-the-road customer base.

The latest estimates for retail sales in the fourth quarter is that they will be down 1% which would make it the worst holiday in over two decades.

A 1% would be a sunny day in a time of storms. It won’t happen.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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