Retail stocks jumped in early Wednesday trading after data showing the long Thanksgiving weekend has gotten the holiday shopping season off to a good start. Macy’s Inc. shares spiked 5.7%, Target Corp. shares rose 5.6%, Nordstrom Inc. shares were up 5% and Kohl’s Corp. stock climbed 4.1% for the day so far. Adobe data shows that Cyber Monday was the biggest online shopping day in history, with sales totaling $6.59 billion, up 16.8% year-over-year. Despite the steep increase in e-commerce activity, brick-and-mortar stores held their own, with ShopperTrak data showing that traffic declined just 1% on Black Friday, and for the week, from Sunday, Nov. 16 to Sunday Nov. 26, the rate of shopper visit decline was 2%, the same as 2016. This indicates, according to ShopperTrak’s general manager for the Americas, Bill McCarthy, “that the era of steep year-over-year declines in shopper visits around [Black] Friday may be coming to an end.” The SPDR S&P Retail ETF is up 12.3% for the past three months, but down 5% for the past year. The S&P 500 index is up 19.3% for the last 12 months.
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