JC Penney's Q1 Beat On EPS, Missed On Other Metrics

Shares of J C Penney Company Inc (NYSE: JCP) were seen trading higher by 3 percent early Friday morning after the company reported mixed first-quarter results.

JC Penney said it earned $0.06 per share in the first quarter on revenue of $2.7 billion (versus $2.8 billion a year ago). Wall Street analysts were expecting the retailer to lose $0.21 per share on revenue of $2.77 billion. Comparable store sales for the quarter fell 3.5 percent, yet net income improved by $116 million from a year ago to a net loss of $97 million per share.

JC Penney ended the quarter with inventory worth $2.95 billion, an increase of 0.8 percent from a year ago. The company noted that 300 basis points of the increase were due to floor samples for appliance showrooms and ongoing investments in new Sephora store-in-store concept.

Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter totaled $363 million, down from $415 million a year ago.

Finally, the company said that its home, Sephora, fine jewelry and salon were the top performing divisions and by region, Southwest and Southeast were the best performers.

"We continue to make encouraging progress in the Company's competitive and financial position despite our top-line performance during the first quarter," Marvin R. Ellison, chairman and CEO said. "The recent sales trends, combined with the improvement in women's apparel and our growth initiatives led by Sephora inside JCPenney, jcp.com and major appliances, provide us with the confidence to maintain our sales guidance for the full year."

Outlook

In conjunction with JC Penney's earnings report, the company reaffirmed its full-year guidance, which includes: 1) comparable store sales to fall between negative 1 percent and 1 positive 1 percent, 2) gross margin to be 20 to 40 basis points higher from 2016's levels, 3) SG&A to be down 1 to 2 percent from 2016's level and 4) Adjusted earnings per share in a range of $0.40 to $0.65.

Despite the initial gains, the stock receded, and at time of publication, shares were seen down 6.43 percent at $4.98 in the pre-market session.

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Image Credit: By Rob Stinnett from Boonville, MO, USA (Retail at night) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons