Adrian Gomez Investments

Today, November 20, 2013 JC Penney announced its third quarter results with a press release followed by a conference call before the markets opened for business. Overall, I believe that it was good news for the longs (such as myself). However, skepticism is still hanging in there as the material results were disappointing and the only good news are the trends that seem to be improving but are yet to show on the quarterly results. As promised, I will give you, what I believe are the most important things from the conference call and quarterly results for your review. Mike Ullman the CEO mentioned that "the turnaround for J.C. Penney is beginning to take hold" He also said that during the third quarter "we began generating positive sales momentum". Nevertheless, those positive sales trends are not yet materialized and reflected into this quarter results. Margins on sales are not yet improving. In fact, they are deteriorating based on the same period last yea...

Image of one of the "shops" we'll see at J.C. Penney There have been many critics of the strategy that the CEO of J. C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) Ron Johnson is implementing to turn things around in a compelling effort to revive the old department store and take it back to a profitable position it once had. Herb Greenberg, an analyst for CNBC placed Mr. Johnson as the 3 rd worst CEO of 2012 saying “…over promising and under delivering” was the main reason for this uncomfortable award. If we take in consideration the fact that Mr. Johnson had said that a turnaround was not a one year deal but one that will come in different stages taking up to three years and that 2012 was the very first one for this effort, then, that statement of under delivering seems inadequate, at least for now. As I wrote in an article that was published on December 10 th we have to give management the time to get everything in place before we judge their performance. I know that JCP...