Holiday Retail Sales Estimates Rolling In (BONT, JCP, JWN, HGG, BBY)

Tickerspy’s Department Store Index

DEPARTMENT STORE INVESTING IDEAS

• Popular long ideas: SHLD, M, TJX
• Popular short ideas: SHLD, JCP, M
• Top dividend plays: KSS, M, JWN
• Pro favorites: TJX, M, KSS

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DEPARTMENT STORE COVERAGE

Big stores, often mall anchors, that sell many different categories of goods

• Momentum Trader: 3 Sectors Posting 7% Weekly Rallies (BONT, JCP, DDS, NXST, TV, LNN, CNH, DE)
• Three Sectors With Big One-Month Losses (BONT, DDS, LVS, BYD, CAGC, CGA)
• Department Stores Slip Ahead of Earnings

DEPARTMENT STORE CHART

DEPARTMENT STORE METRICS

Avg. Market Cap:	$8.2B
Avg. P/E Ratio:	14.8
Avg. Div Yield:	1.0%

According to Bloomberg, the International Council of Shopping Centers, which tracks sales trends at more than 30 chains for stores open by at least a year, is forecasting holiday sales growth of between 3% and 3.5%, which would mark the best performance since 2006, when the national unemployment rate was less than 5% in November and December, and the Dow was trading above 12,000. Last month Delloitte forecast 2% holiday sales growth from November through January, to a total of $852 billion.

A look at tickerspy’s 11 retail subsector Indexes shows that more than half have posted double-digit rallies amide the equity run over the last month.

One-month winners across the retail spectrum include department stores Bon-Ton Stores (BONT), J C Penney (JCP), and Nordstrom (JWN), and electronics retailers HHGregg Inc (HGG) and Best Buy Co. (BBY), all of which have gained more than 20% for the period.

It will be interesting to see whether strong holiday sales prospects can help the various retail segments maintain their recent momentum. Investors can track 11 retail subsector Indexes for performance trends and a suite of other metrics at tickerspy.com.

Tags: BBY, BONT, HGG, JCP, JWN