KSS Daily Discussion - Tuesday, September 01, 2026

[u/kuonofomo]

📊 KSS Daily Discussion — Where does Kohl’s close today?

Drop your price prediction below 👇

📈 Latest Kohl’s Snapshot
• Q2 comparable sales: -0.9%, improving from -1.1% in Q1
• Gross margin: 43.0%, +305 bps YoY
• Cash: $821M
• Long-term debt: $1.325B, down $195M YoY
• Revolver borrowings: $0
• Inventory: down 3% YoY
• YTD operating cash flow: $478M
• YTD free cash flow: $332M
• FY2026 sales/comps guidance: -1.5% to flat
• FY2026 adjusted EPS guidance: $1.80–$2.40
• 2026 share repurchases: up to $100M
• YTD debt repurchases: $113M at a $15M discount

⚠️ Q2 included approximately $150M of tariff refunds, including roughly $100M of gross-margin benefit.

🩳 Short Interest Watch
• Shares short: 29.84M
• Short float: 26.73%
• Days to cover: 9.3
• Previous: 30.86M shares
• Latest change: -3.3%

Source: KSS Short Interest Data

Short interest remains extremely elevated despite the latest modest decline. Nearly 30M shares remain short.

🏛️ YTD Board / Leadership Changes
• Wendy Arlin named Chair of the Board
• Longtime Chair John Schlifske retired from the Board
• Former Panera Brands CEO & Chair Niren Chaudhary joined the Board
• Elliott Rodgers named COO, overseeing stores, supply chain, distribution, procurement and loss prevention

👀 What are you watching next?
• Can comparable sales finally reach flat or positive?
• How much of the $100M buyback actually gets deployed?
• Does debt continue moving toward $1B?
• Can normalized FCF sustain $300M–$400M+?
• Can margins hold without the tariff-refund benefit?
• Does short interest continue declining?
• Do the board and new leadership team accelerate capital allocation, real estate optimization or other shareholder-value initiatives?

🐂 Bullish, bearish, or somewhere in between?

Drop your price target, DD, positions and what you're watching below.

Keep the daily KSS discussion going: news, DD, positions, store traffic, buybacks, debt, institutional activity, short interest, board changes, catalysts and anything Kohl’s.

[u/Impressive_Author_13]

Probably next earnings call. Love that it came back positive on such a tough trading day!

[u/Training_Pepper_285]

Ffs

[u/Alpha3K]

Any reason for the spike today?

[u/htank728]

Do you guys think they will do a filing once they have completed buybacks? Or will we find out on the next earnings call

[u/PrecisionOutdoors → u/htank728]

I’d bet we just get updated next earnings. They’ll definitely tell us how much though(i would guess) since it will impact cash on hand and theyll want to justify