Will Macy's Earnings Beats Persist, and Can it 'Escape the Auction Block'?

Macy's has been written off as a serious contender by some analysts, compared perhaps accurately to "an injured wildebeest stalked by lions," by Forbes contributor Greg Petro in a recent outline of the retailer's recent fortunes.

The overall report card leading up to the most recent Q2 earnings is fairly grim: Macy's hiked prices to offset tariff costs, per CNBC, after closing nearly half of its peak number of 850 stores. And as Petro put it, jumpy investors have been champing at the bit for the retailer to sell off some of its more valuable assets, potentially spinning off Bloomingdale's and Bluemercury — both highlights of the company's current portfolio, and both outperforming — in order to capitalize on what's hot in terms of sales figures.

Despite cutting its full-year guidance in Q1 and indicating a lack of certainty concerning its ability to generate sales moving forward, CEO Tony Spring appeared stoic, perhaps even optimistic, over Macy's concerted turnaround.

“We’re just well positioned right now for the environment we’re in to take share, to deliver for our customers and to provide a better experience,” Spring told CNBC following the early September Q2 report dropped.

“Tariffs are real. It’s a component of the business, but we have tail winds that we are trying to mitigate against those headwinds,” Spring said.

“That’s a better customer experience, that’s a newer assortment, that’s less redundancy in our assortment, that’s now a business that’s growing across all three nameplates in our portfolio and a healthy inventory position going into the fall season," he added.

Macy's Appears (Somewhat) Resistant To Leverage Real Estate, Doubling-Down on Staying in the Game

As Petro noted, Macy's appears resistant to leverage its real estate holdings in terms of selling off assets, instead opening a Bloomingdale's outlet offshoot, Bloomies, with Bloomingdale's pegging a 5.7% comparable sales growth during its relatively sunny Q2 report.

Speaking of that report, Macy's raised both full-year earnings and sales guidance — expecting earnings of $1.70-$2.05 per share versus $1.60-$2 previously, alongside revenue of $21.15 billion-$21.45 billion versus $21-$21.4 billion. Stock prices surged upward over 20% over two days following the Sept. 3 news, from $13.49 on Sept. 2 to $17.24 on Sept. 4, and rest just above that mark (at ~$17.58) as of Sept. 18.

On the real estate front, however, as the Forbes contributor noted, while an outright sale isn't necessarily in the retailer's immediate future, a more complex scheme could be at play.

"One of the tactics the company is reportedly considering, which could justify a higher stock price, would be the sale and leaseback of its real estate portfolio. In the meantime, the company has recently repurchased more than $150 million worth of its stock and continues to pay a quarterly dividend that currently yields a return of about 4%," Petro wrote.

Petro concluded his analysis by noting that the future for Macy's remained uncertain, which seems a prevalent take, but also that Macy's growth pattern — from the company that "invented the department store" to one which gobbled up locally-owned department stores and quickly rebranded them under its own banner, eroding customer loyalty in the process — had contributed to many of its woes in 2025.