A quick DD on a run down retail stock called Kohl’s. Most people know Kohl’s Department Stores and that retail in general has been down. Both Kohls and Target took huge hits after their disappointing earnings a couple months ago. I feel Kohl’s is on a rebound. Maybe not to their peak glory days, but I can see $17-$18 in the next few months. New CEO stepping in, fresh blood, new horizons. What is Kohl’s Doing- New CEO hire- For a long time, Michelle Goss was the CEO and was doing a great job at finding ways to strengthen Kohl’s- brought Amazon in house for a return hub, brought Sephora in house, and other ventures. She was singled out by an activist campaign during her last year with Kohl’s and it became so overbearing that she left for Levi’s. In the meantime, they hired some old white dude out of retirement to be interim CEO. He didn’t do anything really for the last few years. He is now gone. They hired Ashley Buchanan, who previously was the CEO of Michaels and lead them through a private sale. “Kohl's (KSS) announced that CEO Tom Kingsbury will be stepping down from the role effective January 15, 2025. Former Michaels Companies CEO Ashley Buchanan has been named his replacement.” Closing some brick and mortar- Sometimes people and articles will make this seem like a bad thing. But truly it is a bullish decision because in the end it is a money saving action. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kohls-close-27-stores-april-182955205.html Thoughts on going private- There is nothing confirmed, but always rumors on Kohl’s going private. Current rumor would be Amazon buying them, but again just rumors. New partnership- Kohl’s has teamed up with Babies R Us to bring them into their stores ala Sephora. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/shopping/2024/08/01/babies-r-us-shops-kohls-stores-full-list/74633178007/ Real estate- $8 billion minimum of real estate and $1.5 billion of debt. Heavily shorted- The stock itself has a float of 108 million and still is heavily invested by institutions. And it currently is 40% short on the float. It could be primed for a little squeeze action. Staff cuts?- I haven’t heard anything yet, but the next thing we normally see companies do to save money is cut staff. I wouldn’t be surprised if we got news that they let go a certain percentage of employees. This is considered bullish. Con- Retail, duh JP Morgan came out today and downgraded Kohl’s from $13 to $11. Part of me thinks this coincides with a crazy drop today around 11:30am cst. But this would be considered borderline conspiracy theory stuff. Wrap up- I think Kohl’s has bottomed out. I think we start to see them reverse this negative downward trend they’ve been in for a while with the new CEO and a fresh perspective. With a new CEO comes new direction, new excitement, new projects, new blood, etc. My guess is their next earnings will be better because it will cover their holiday season which is their best season. Historically, $KSS has done good from January to March. With it being heavily shorted, and a momentum swing in the air, I think we could have ourselves a nice little squeeze. In for a handful of $13.5c for 2/28 and 1k shares at $13.18