JCPenney fires chief operating officer

Catherine West, 47, who also held the title of executive vice president, had been COO since July. She had no retail experience, according to the biography Penney issued at the time.

A two-sentence news release from Penney Thursday gave no explanation for West’s firing, and the company declined to make Chairman and Chief Executive Myron E. Ullman III available for comment.

Penney posted impressive same-store sales gains above 8 percent in September and October, although November sales at stores open at least one year rose just 1.4 percent, below the 3.7 percent increase predicted by analysts and last year’s November gain of 3.6 percent.

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DETROIT (AP) ? Ford Motor Co. likely will see a large sales drop in December, while Toyota Motor Corp. could gain enough to take over Ford’s traditional role as the No. 2 auto company in the U.S. for the month, according to some industry analysts.

Edmunds.com, a research Web site for car buyers that tracks sales data from dealers, is predicting a stunning 19.6 percent drop in Ford sales compared with last December based on data from the first half of the month, while Bank of America analyst Ronald Tadross expects Ford’s dip to be in the 10 to 12 percent range.

If Toyota does unseat Ford, it would be for the second month in a row and the third month of 2006. Toyota passed Ford in U.S. sales for the first time in July.

Jesse Toprak, chief economist for Edmunds, said Toyota likely will claim the No. 2 spot for the year in 2007, although Ford could bounce back for a few months during the first half of the new year.

He predicted Ford’s December sales would drop mainly because it stopped producing the venerable Taurus, which was once the nation’s top-selling car. Ford sold more than 5,700 Tauruses in November even though production stopped in October.