JC Penney Co (NYSE:JCP) shares found their spring Thursday morning, after the retail chain reported second-quarter losses.
The company reported quarterly sales of $2.619 billion, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $2.71 billion. This is a 5.2% decrease over sales of $2.762 billion the same period last year.
Net loss for the quarter was $48 million or ($0.15) per share. Comparable sales decreased 9.0 % for the quarter. Excluding the impact of the Company’s exit from major appliance and in-store furniture categories, comparable sales decreased 6.0 % for the quarter.
Cost of goods sold for the quarter was 63.2 % of sales, a decrease of 310 basis points compared to the same period last year.
"While we still have work to do on our top line, I strongly believe that growing sales in an unprofitable way is simply not an option," said CEO Jill Soltau. "The only way I know how to reconstruct a business is through a holistic approach across all the key tenets of strategic, purposeful and effective retailing.
"Notably this quarter, the meaningful improvement we delivered in cost of goods sold was driven by lower permanent markdowns, improved shrink results, increased store and online selling margins and the exit of major appliance and in-store furniture categories.”
JC Penney shares were trading up six cents, or 11%, to 63 cents early Thursday. The stock has a 52-week high of $2.65 and a 52-week low of 53 cents.
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