Retail Sector Is On Fire Today

Shares of J C Penney Company Inc JCP gained more than 5 percent Wednesday morning as the company's management spoke at the Piper Jaffray Consumer Conference.

Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the company's CEO Marvin Ellison's presentation.

1. Memorial Day weekend sales were positive and management feels good about where the company is.

2. A new mobile app is ready to roll out and represents something that was desperately needed.

3. A major un-named competitor is donating market share within the appliance market, and the company is in a good position to grab the lost market share.

Retail Sector On Fire

While shares of J.C. Penney held on to its gains by Wednesday afternoon, several of its department store and retailing peers were also trading higher.

Kohl's Corporation KSS's stock was higher by more than 3 percent and was boosted by a bullish report from analysts at Cleveland Research who said they were positive on the department store's sales trends.

Macy's, Inc. M saw its stock gain more than 3 percent.

However, shares of Sears Holdings Corp SHLD surged higher by more than 11 percent on no notable news or scheduled events.

$SHLD up 12% today, because...?

Something something efficient markets
— Jordan S. Terry (@The_Analyst) June 15, 2016

Other notable department store and retailers that saw their shares trade higher by more than 2 percent by Wednesday afternoon include Nordstrom, Inc. JWN, Bon-Ton Stores Inc BONT, Dillard's, Inc. DDS and Gap Inc GPS, among others.