Investors tossed major brick-and-mortar retailers into the
bargain bin on Cyber Monday -- a day celebrated by online
retailers as consumers shop till they drop over the Internet.
Nordstrom (
JWN
),Macy's (
M
),Big Lots (
BIG
) andCoach (
COH
) dragged the S&P 500 down the most, falling 3.00% to
4.12%.Target (
TGT
),Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) andCostco (COST) skidded 1.70% to
2.64%. They contributed the most to the 0.21% loss in SPDR
S&P 500 (SPY).
These chains are essentially becoming show rooms forAmazon.com
(AMZN) andebay.com (EBAY), says Ethan Anderson, chief investment
strategist at C-PAS, an investment advisory firm in Grand Rapids,
Mich. He believes investors may be assuming that good sales and
earnings for Amazon.com and Ebay.com may translate into bad
numbers for traditional retailers.
Amazon climbed 1.56%. EBay blasted 4.88% and broke out of a
flat base chart pattern.
SPDR S&P Retail (XRT), a basket of the all the retailers
in the S&P 500, fell 0.97%.Market Vectors Retail ETF (RTH)
slipped 0.47%.
SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) dropped 0.28%.
PowerShares QQQ (QQQ) bucked the sell-off with a 0.43% gain
thanks to strength inApple (AAPL) andAmazon.com (AMZN).
Online sales growth has been beating brick-and-mortar stores
by a wide swath the past few years. IHS Global Insight projects
online holiday retail sales will rise 17% over last year. They
climbed 16% year over year in 2011 and 14% in 2010.
Retail sales overall are seen rising 3.9% over last year,
after lifting 5.5% the previous two years.
"One reason that several brick-and-mortar stores opened their
doors on Thanksgiving Day was that online stores are open 24/7,"
U.S. economist Chris Christopher of IHS wrote in a note. "Last
year's holiday online retail sales amounted to a little over $67
billion and this year's holiday online retail sales are projected
to be in the $79 billion ballpark."
Christopher notes that consumer confidence has been improving
since the end of summer, with gas prices falling, wage increases
seen as likely to outpace inflation and the housing market
recovering.
Follow Trang Ho on Twitter
@TrangHoETFs
.