Macy’s Gets Coal for Christmas

By Chris Lange Updated Jan 31, 2:16AM EST · Published Jan 10, 10:15AM EST

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Macy’s Gets Coal for Christmas — © Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock.com

Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M | M Price Prediction) announced results from its holiday season early on Thursday, and it looks like Santa brought this retailer a lot of coal. The guidance for the coming year was not exactly spectacular either.

Comparable sales growth for the November/December period was 0.7% for owned stores and 1.1% for owned plus licensed stores.

The company revised its guidance going forward for the 2019 fiscal year and now expects to see comparable sales up over 2% and net sales down between 2.0% and 0.5%. In terms of earnings per share, Macy’s expects to see this in the range of $3.95 to $4.00.

Consensus estimates are calling for $4.23 in EPS and $25.01 billion in revenue for the coming year.

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Jeff Gennette, board chair and chief executive of Macy’s, commented:

We delivered our second consecutive year of positive holiday comparable sales, driven largely by the traction of our strategic initiatives: Backstage, Vendor Direct, Store Pickup, Loyalty and Growth50. We experienced another period of double-digit growth in our digital business and continued strength in the Growth50 stores. The holiday season began strong – particularly during Black Friday and the following Cyber Week, but weakened in the mid-December period and did not return to expected patterns until the week of Christmas. In the holiday period, we saw strong performance across a number of categories (fine jewelry, women’s shoes, fragrance, dresses, outerwear, active and home). This sales growth was largely offset by: underperformance of other categories (women’s sportswear, seasonal sleepwear, fashion jewelry, fashion watches and cosmetics); temporary fulfillment challenges following the fire in our West Virginia distribution center; and underestimation of the impact of changes to our pre-Christmas earn & redeem promotional event.

Shares of Macy’s were last seen down about 19% at $25.80, in a 52-week range of $22.47 to $41.99. The consensus analyst price target is $35.38.

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About the Author Chris Lange →

Chris Lange is a writer for 24/7 Wall St., based in Houston. He has covered financial markets over the past decade with an emphasis on healthcare, tech, and IPOs. During this time, he has published thousands of articles with insightful analysis across these complex fields. Currently, Lange's focus is on military and geopolitical topics.

Lange's work has been quoted or mentioned in Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo, The Verge, Vice, The Intelligencer, Quartz, Nasdaq, The Motley Fool, Fox Business, International Business Times, The Street, Seeking Alpha, Barron’s, Benzinga, and many other major publications.

A graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, Lange majored in business with a particular focus on investments. He has previous experience in the banking industry and startups.