At one point Tuesday morning, shares of J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) had dropped nearly 4.5% before bouncing back. There have been so many problems at the retailer that it is difficult to say what might have caused the early morning dip.

It could be the story in this morning’s Wall Street Journal about how easy money is keeping retailers like J.C. Penney, Sears and Kmart, and RadioShack afloat. All have valuable real estate and inventories to use as collateral for borrowing, so no matter how lousy business is, there are plenty of lenders ready to throw money at Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) and RadioShack Corp. (NYSE: RSH).

There was also a story this morning that brick-and-mortar sales were holding on, but the main action was in online sales, where companies like Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) continue to post big year-over-year gains.

J.C. Penney has had little to say about sales since its giddy announcement that November same-store sales rose 10% year-over-year. Research firm Retail Metrics noted last Saturday that J.C. Penney did not appear to be having a good day. At J.C. Penney stores, pricing was heavily promotional and traffic was fairly busy in footwear and outerwear, but other departments were “relatively quiet.”

Retail Metrics has tagged J.C. Penney with a 4.1% same-store sales growth estimate for the fourth quarter, which given last year’s actual fourth quarter drop of 31.7% ought to be a cinch. But nothing’s ever a cinch with J.C. Penney.

J.C. Penney’s stock was down about 2% in the noon hour on Tuesday, at $8.31 in a 52-week range of $6.24 to $23.10. Trading was fairly light, with about a third of average daily volume of 44 million shares having changed hands. The low of the day was $8.08.

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