Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Your first question is from the line of Lorraine Maikis Hutchison with Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.
Neal Goldberg
Hello Lorraine.
Lorraine Maikis - Banc of America-Merrill Lynch
Thank you. Good morning. Can you provide us with some idea of where you expect free cash flow to be in '09 and in 2010, if you have it?
Cynthia Gordon
Yes Lorraine. In '09, I think we had previously projected positive free cash flow. Given the promotional stance we took over holiday, we do not expect that. However, we do expect as we said earlier that we are looking at all the ways we spend our cash and expect to reduce debt by a minimum of 40 million between now and July.
Lorraine Maikis - Banc of America-Merrill Lynch
Okay. And then as we move into the back half, you come up against some pretty aggressive clearance activities from last year. Can you just talk about how you expect... no trends have improved, but how you expect to comp going forward up against that dramatic level of clearance? And then, what you think the margin impact will be this year from taking a less promotional stance?
Neal Goldberg
Well, I'll answer the last thing you said first. We said we think our margins were going to get more normalized in the 50s range and we're seeing that since the first of the year. Two, where we started facing that clearance initiative right after Valentine's Day.
We still have clearance much, much less. We think... we're going to benefit from a couple of things. One, by having the higher retails by not offering as much clearance we think that's going to be a benefit, we think our presentation is better. Clearly, it's going to be a hurdle to deliver the big comp numbers we have from the clearance initiative.
But we do have some clearance. We think we are presenting the clearance in a better fashion than we did in the past. And we think our assortments are more compelling at this time than we had last year.
And we also know from the previous year, other kind of promotional activity that were up against in '08 from '07, we don't have. So, certainly the macroeconomics are going to be challenging. But we think we have a good strategy and we think we're positioned well and the margin... the gross margin dollars should see a nice increase because of not being so promotional.
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