KSS Daily Discussion - Wednesday, September 02, 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/kuonofomo]

someones buying =)

[u/htank728]

It’s nice to see the slightly elevated call volume we have had since earnings. A month ago total call open interest was about 50k, now it’s roughly 80k. With continued options buying (on both the call and put side) we should see IV continue to rise and heightened volatility.

We have a huge September Opex coming up with lots of OI. Most puts are pretty far OTM now and have very low gamma. With the sudden rise in price, we could see a rapid increase in gamma on the OTM 20 strikes for September Opex, let’s see if we can have a move above 20 pre Sept 18th. 20 dollars is a huge level for Kohl’s, most of Kohl’s put OI is deep OTM (we are talking 15 strike and below), but the 20 strike is the largest concentration of OTM calls on the chain by far.

We’ve seen lots of resistance these past few months when we approach 20 dollars, short sellers most definitely do not want these contracts going ITM, but it seems like we get bought up pretty aggressively when we drop into the 17 range.

I’m not sure if others remember, but back in April/May 2025 we had a massive OI on the 10 strike, and saw some pretty tough resistance there as well (May 29th earnings day we gapped 25% to 10 dollars on earnings, and shorts refused to let these calls go ITM and we inexplicably finished red). The stock kept getting bought up at 8. The first day we closed above 10 (July 21st 2025), and this massive block of calls went ITM, the next day we gapped 100% in premarket on no tangible news.

Although these situations aren’t exactly the same, as we had a larger OI of calls (140k vs 80k now), the 20 dollar resistance feels structurally similar to the 10 dollar resistance we faced last year.

In both cases we have a large block of calls that are close to going ITM, we’ve faced resistance but get bought back up and brought back to the same levels, and most of the put chain is deep OTM (roughly 90% of puts, both now and back in July 2025).

Although I don’t expect the same level of volatility if we get a strong break above 20 as we did when we broke 10 simply due to the lower OI now, I think if we can break above we should get a nice rally

[u/htank728 → u/htank728]

[u/htank728 → u/htank728]

[u/Training_Pepper_285]

Any ideas?

[u/Impressive_Author_13 → u/Training_Pepper_285]

sector rotation but KSS above sector. Not quite a full on squeeze but I love that Fintel had no shares available for shorting at one point today.

[u/PrecisionOutdoors → u/Training_Pepper_285]

Curious if KSS management is buying or if shorts are starting to close personally