In the U.S., the day after Thanksgiving is widely known as "Black Friday". A day when the masses head out to shopping centers and start the holiday shopping season. This one day has retailers planning all year long for the types of sales they will offer to attract these shoppers. Competition is fierce and sales are all over the place. So where should you look in the markets to benefit from such a day?
Well first off you will look at the normal "brick and mortar" retailers. The largest in this category would most certainly be Walmart (WMT ). With the largest U.S. foot print of stores, Walmart is one of the busiest stores on black Friday. Leading up to the holiday, Walmart is up almost 5% from its recent lows. Other names of general retailers include Target (TGT ) which is up 3.5% since the start of the week, and Sears (SHLD ), though Sears has been immense financial pressure recently and investors seem to be avoiding this name for now.
In the clothing retail space, there are names like Gap, Inc. (GPS ), American Eagle (AEO ), and Macy's (M ) which will be fighting to attract holiday shoppers this season. All of these names have seen a "pre -Black Friday" boost.
Of course there are the obvious names that we have not mentioned yet such as Amazon (AMZN ). While they also do compete in the black Friday mania, they have their own holiday on Tuesday of next week called "cyber Tuesday". The brick and mortar stores have long struggled to attract shoppers on these days as Amazon is clearly the dominant leader online.
If all the retail names have you confused about which ones will benefit the most this season, consider a retail ETF like the (XRT ). This ETF has a well diversified group of almost all the retailers and offers a one-stop shop for someone looking to participate on the holiday season here in the states.