For nearly a year now, Myer's chief executive Richard Umbers has been acrobatically evading a demolition ball called reality. In retrospect, what utter madness it was to upgrade FY17 guidance in November, a call that sent the stock rocketing 14.4 per cent to $1.19.

Because after a deathly January clearance sale, that new forecast looked right at home on the tougher side of impossible. Yet Umbers persisted on his interim earnings call in March, arguing that guidance would be met because "our result for the full year is not just simply driven by a revenue number. There are many other levers in the result. We have the grip of those levers, if you like, to make sure that we can manage all aspects of the business to deliver on the outlook statement that we've made".