Penney reports 51 percent slide in 4Q profit

[Wetzelbill]

Source: AP/Yahoo News


NEW YORK – J.C. Penney Co. reported a 51 percent drop in fourth-quarter profits as customers sharply cut spending on clothing and other more discretionary purchases as the recession deepened. The department store chain also said that losses in the first quarter would be wider than analysts had predicted amid a deteriorating environment.

The Plano, Texas -based retailer said Friday that earnings for the three-month period ended Jan. 31 were $211 million, or 95 cents per share. That compares with $430 million, or $1.93 per share in the year-ago period.

Sales dropped almost 10 percent to $5.76 billion from $6.39 billion in the year-ago period.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected 92 cents per share on revenue of $5.76 billion.

Same-store sales or sales at stores opened at least a year fell 10.8 percent in the quarter.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090220/ap_on_bi_ge/earns_penney

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Ouch.

[babylonsister]

1. Read this gem yesterday: "Get Ready for Mass Retail Closings"

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/187534/Get-Ready-for-Mass-Retail-Closings?tickers=sks,^gspc,jwn,tif,zlc

Get Ready for Mass Retail Closings
Posted Feb 19, 2009 11:58am EST by Tech Ticker


About 220,000 stores may close this year in America, says our guest, retail consultant Howard Davidowitz of Davidowitz & Associates. As more Americans save and spend less, it's clear there's too much retail space. Just visit Web site deadmalls.com and track retail's growing body count. And luxury retailers? They're on "life support," Davidowitz says.

Among the brandname stores Davidowitz says are in trouble:

*
Nordstrom
*
Neiman Marcus
*
Tiffany
*
Jeweler Zale Corp.
*
Saks
*
J.C. Penney
*
Sears

[onehandle]

2. Not Saks!

Where will millionaire women over 55 go to shop now?

Wal-Mart should take over.

Wal-Saks.

[babylonsister]

4. The potential closing of Tiffany's breaks my heart, too. nt

[NMMOM]

6. onehandle on WalSaks

The possibility of this happening isn't so far fetched. WalMart will finally achieve their goal of becoming the worlds' biggest monopoly and every last one of us will be forced to shop there and buy their crappy junk! We will all wear the same clothes, eat the same food and be forced to keep buying over and over again the junk they sell because it keeps breaking. Clonage at it's worst.

[madrchsod]

8. google the history of the grocery store chain--a&p

they had a bigger market share than wal-mart.

[Still Sensible]

3. My daughter is a JC Penney hairdresser and she says

that the traffic has been terrible for the last six months.

[Chipper Chat]

5. Beautiful Penney' s ad sections come 3 times a week

in our local small-town newspaper. But our mall Penney's store is virtually empty when I go in there.

[madrchsod]

7. salvation army,goodwill,and others are doing a great...

"plato`s closet" has more clothing in their stores than many major chains. the buying habits of consumers are changing. do`t worry about wal mart.. people will be catching on when they spend ten dollars for a tee shirt that dissolves in the washing machine.



my 24 yr old daughter buys most of her clothes on line,thrift stores, or on sale at the major chains. this is where the consumer of the future is going to buy clothes.

[Coventina]

9. I, for one, would not lament the loss of Penney's

I'll never forgive them for selling dog-fur trimmed coats (from China) labeled as "faux fur".

:mad:

[Wetzelbill]

10. oh my lord

I never heard that one. I used to never pay much attention to that stuff. That is awful.

[Coventina]

12. okay, in fairness I have to make a correction:

The coats in question were trimmed with raccoon-dog fur (a canine species), but labeled as "raccoon". When Penney's was called on it, they pulled the coats off the shelves temporarily, then marked out the "raccoon" designation & then put the coats back on the shelf, so the consumers had NO information about the fur. Still unforgiveable.

It was Macy's that had the real fur labeled as "faux".

Bastards.

Here's a few links for those interested:

http://www.hsus.org/furfree/news/retailers_mislabeled_fur.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16597610/from/ET/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3112000

[olddad56]

11. Mervyns, terrible customer service, gone, Penneys is the same thing.

It is almost stressful to shop there.

[jayfish]

13. The Key Word Here Is PROFIT.

The are still making money, just not as much.

Jay

[grasswire]

14. I was in Macy's, Sears, and JCPenney yesterday..

...in a suburban mall.

JC Penney was bright, tidy, full of medium level merchandise and a few customers.

Macy's was shiny, pretty, full of more expensive stuff and some customers.

Sears was (except for the Lands End department) crammed with cheap merchandise like a Wal Mart. The clothing department was absolutely jammed with clearance stuff -- ugly, cheap stuff that is never going to sell. Thousands and thousands of cheap knit shirts marked way down. It was kind of sickening, especially when I remember that our DUer who manages a thrift store tells us that they fill up dumpsters with clothing every week and it goes in the land fill.