J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) is usually pounded in the news, so it tends to stand out any time you see any analyst upgrade in this battered retail stock. And it really stands out when that upgrade to is to a Buy rating.
Citigroup raised J.C. Penney to Buy from Neutral, and the price target was raised to $11 from $7.50 in the call. That puts the implied upside at 30% from the $8.42 prior closing price.
The driving force behind Tuesday’s upgrade is a belief that the troubled department store can continue generating same-store sales. Part of those gains is simply because of a very low base. Still, Citigroup also said that this will lower fears of a liquidity crunch if it reaches its first quarter guidance. Citigroup’s report indicated that the company will not need to raise additional capital, which is in contrast to many other reports.
Keep in mind that the upgrade may not be the only positive call out there. Standard & Poor’s just raised the corporate credit rating recently. Wells Fargo also recently raised its rating to Market Perform from a prior Underperform rating. Still, Sterne Agee maintained its Neutral rating but said that it could not even get to a $3 valuation, based on fears of a capital raise.
This is called a battleground stock, and for a reason.
J.C. Penney shares were up almost 8% at $9.09 in active trading Tuesday morning. This is close to double from the 52-week low of $4.90, yet it is still down more than half from the $19.63 high over the past year.
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