Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) has had a very difficult 2015, which may be a huge understatement. Its shares have fallen from over $70 in July to under $40 by November. And now with shares trading around $39 at the start of December, the well-known and notorious Goldman Sachs has decided that now is the time to remove its Buy rating on Macy’s.

Our top analyst upgrades and downgrades for Friday did not address this call because its details were not available at the time. Goldman Sachs downgraded Macy’s to Neutral from Buy, and the firm’s analyst price target was slashed to $42.00 from $66.00.

Stephen Grambling of Goldman Sachs believes that the cyclical issues and ongoing headwinds that were present in the third quarter created disappointing department store sales results. This issue left inventories high ahead of what was going to be very difficult comparable store sales for Macy’s fourth quarter.

Another concern brought up by Goldman Sachs is that the company’s growth initiatives are not enough to thwart fundamental pressures that are likely to continue ahead. The pressure from competition in e-commerce and m-commerce (the “Amazoning” and ability to instantly compare prices on your phone or computer) is just not likely to go away.

Additionally, the moves in off-price retailers will continue to hurt. Not only do those stores pull sales away from Macy’s and peers, they also force Macy’s and other big store retailers to sell those excess inventories off at levels that are frequently at a loss.

Fast fashion is also acting to keep the pressure on Macy’s store sales. This is where fashion designs move from the catwalk quickly to stores or online in an effort to bank on the newest and hottest fashion trends. Unfortunately, that can leave retailers holding the bag on inventories if the fashion climate changes rapidly to the next hot thing (like, oh my, that blouse is so mid-September and out of fashion).

The long and short of the matter is that Macy’s is expected to continue facing margin pressure from more angles than can effectively be fought.

Goldman Sachs is not alone in being late to the party here. Merrill Lynch downgraded Macy’s to Neutral from Buy in November.

However, Barron’s featured Macy’s late in November as being too cheap to ignore now. They even projected that long-term investors could see double-digit returns when the company gets back on track in the months and years ahead. The counterbalance to the Barron’s article from Goldman Sachs would be that the recovery just might not be coming.

Now investors need to consider when and where Goldman Sachs has been upgrading or downgrading Macy’s. It was back in January of 2014 that Goldman Sachs raised the rating to Buy from Neutral, and the price target was set at $65 at that time. We did not have access to the firm’s peak price target, but we did see that Goldman Sachs had reached $67 target at one point, and the prior target before Friday’s downgrade was $66. The dividend-adjusted prior closing price to the 2014 Goldman Sachs upgrade of Macy’s stock was $53.81 — so the firm has ridden the stock way up and back down.

What is interesting here is that the market is not overweighting the headline shock of this analyst downgrade, even if it came from Goldman Sachs. Maybe it is because the history was up then down, or maybe it was because the new rating is a “Neutral” rather than a “Sell” rating. And maybe investors are just thinking that the downgrade is after enough weakness that it seems counterintuitive.

Macy’s shares were last seen trading down 0.7% at $38.71 on Friday. Macy’s has a consensus analyst price target of $46.90 and a 52-week range of $37.75 to $73.61.

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