Financial Statement Analysis Basically, these ratios tell a lot about the two companies. It takes half a second to realize that Kohl's is the better investment, since JCP is losing money in heroic fashion. JC Penney not only lost a lot of money last year, but has lost money for the past three years. Its revenues are down substantially in that time, with a collapse in 2013. A quick Google search tells all about the massive marketing missteps that have crippled JC Penney. The stock price is low, but that is because this is not a growth story.

The current ratio highlights the liquidity of the company, and both are well above the 1.0 threshold normally considered a sign of trouble. While Kohl's earns a better profit margin, both companies have a health gross margin. The issue over at Penney is that its net margin is a staggering loss. To put it in perspective, in 2012 Penney saw its revenues decline by over $4 billion, but only cut its selling, general and administrative expense by $500 million. That SGA expense is still higher than the company's entire gross profit. JC Penney is a much smaller company by revenue than it was a few years ago, and will be hard pressed to make that adjustment quickly.

Both firms have...

Neither balance sheet recorded an accounts receivable, which is certainly a bit odd, making it difficult to calculate the I/R turnover. Kohl's has the better asset turnover, but of course a better ROA by far, given that it was the only one of the two that turned a profit.
In terms of debt, this is a point of encouragement for JC Penney. Despite its struggles it has a lower degree of leverage than Kohl's does. But it has negative free cash flow. Suffice to say, JCP does not pay a dividend. That would actually be insane if it did. It paid a dividend up until last year, when the depth of its financial crisis became fully apparent.

The only measure on which JC Penney scores better than Kohl's is on its leverage, where it has the lower debt/equity ratio. Kohl's has a fairly high such ratio, but nothing that would legitimately cause alarm, especially with a healthy current ratio. For JCP, the debt ratio is liable to go up, if the company would even be able to acquire new debt, because of its losses. The company may well begin to run into solvency problems. If JCP was not so healthy before, it would be unable to withstand the collapse in sales, but at this point…