Myer (ASX: MYR) released its first quarter result on Wednesday last week showing sales up 0.7% compared to last year, thereby missing market expectations

Myer (ASX: MYR) released its first quarter result on Wednesday last week showing sales up 0.7% compared to last year, thereby missing market expectations. The business has been exhibiting significant margin pressure particularly in womenswear. Unsurprisingly, this was its weakest category for the quarter, while its cosmetics category was the strongest, having now delivered ten consecutive quarters of growth. We note that global cosmetics retail giant, Sephora, is opening up its first store in Australia before Christmas directly opposite Myer's Sydney CBD flagship store. Sephora will compete head on with Myer in the cosmetics space, as discussed in my article published on Wednesday in the AFR's Smart Investor section. Click the following link to read this article: (VIEW LINK). The result continues MYR's poor performance since it IPO'd in October 2009 at $4.10. The shares closed at $1.785 down 5.4% last week - a fall of 56% since the IPO. We don't own MYR in the investment portfolio.