J.C. Penney Gives Retail Update

J.C. Penney JCP is introducing exclusive brands by Liz Claiborne NYSE, ALDO, and Sephora as well as improvement in home to help drive traffic in 2H2010 says Citigroup analysts. The store has seen over YoY increase in mall traffic, transactions, and units per transaction in 2Q2010. Citi reports the best performing divisions were men's and women's apparel while the weakest division was home. The best performing region was the Northeast and the weakest was the Northwest region. Inventories have increased 7.1% over last year which includes customer facing inventory in stores that was up 5% YoY. Risks to achieving the target price include increased competition among department stores, related risks to secular trends, and the risk that JCP's moderate income consumer will be more negatively impacted by macroeconomic pressures than anticipated. JCP closed Monday at $22.33 LIZ closed Monday at $ 4.91