The mid-priced department store chain JC Penney Co Inc Friday announced a monstrous 79 percent plunge in its first-quarter profit, citing a ‘hefty’ -$114 million - pension expense. The Plano, Texas-based retailer said that even though its quarterly results surpassed analysts’ estimates, it would likely miss the full-year forecast by Wall Street.

JC Penney’s $25-million earnings, or 11 cents per share, for the quarter that ended May 2, is a rather dismal comparison with its year-before figures of $120-million earnings, or 54 cents per share. Excluding one-time items, the analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected the company’s profit figures to be 10 cents per share.

The first-quarter sales at Penney fell 6 percent to $3.88 billion from the same-quarter last year figures of $4.13 billion. Same-store sales – implying sales at stores open at least a year – dropped 7.5 percent, to some extent due to weakness in the store’s fine jewelry business.

Penney, like many of the other department store retailers, has been suffering blows at the hands of steep decline in sales declines, mostly as shoppers shied away from spending on non-essential items in the recession-hit economy.

Myron E. Ullman III, Chairman and CEO of Penney, has warned that the company’s stores might still face somewhat ‘soft’ consumer spending and lesser mall traffic in the coming months.