Little to Cheer in Holiday Retail Reports

But J.C. Penney balanced that news with disappointing results from its drugstore division, which it had hoped would post same-store sales gains of 6% for the month. The company now says sales at Eckerd were coming in below that plan.

Meanwhile, J.C. Penney projected that sales at its catalog division would be down 20% for the month, roughly in line with expectations.

The news was all bad at Federated. The company, which operates Macy's and Bloomingdale's, had already said its same-store sales for November and December were coming in below its plan of no growth to a 2.5% decline.

On Monday, the company said that its comparable-store sales in December would come in at the bottom of that range, at around a 2.5% decline. For its combined November and December period, same-store sales are expected to drop 4.5%, the company said.

Last month, same-store sales at Federated dropped 7.4% over the same period last year. The company has been suffering from widespread discounting this holiday season and a long-term trend of consumers turning to discount chains, such as Wal-Mart and Target, instead of department stores.

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints