When looking at the overall picture, it's evident the markets continue to strive. The S&P 500 continues to accelerate north and has shown a max pullback of 3%, which has not been seen since the 1990s. When looking at the broad market, it's been great for many companies and their stock price. The one thing people tend to overlook is the individual sectors. Many reputable companies in the retail space have taken a tremendous hit this year, and it's interesting to look at who some of these companies are. Retail stocks in particular are under pressure. The reason for this is the competitive edge companies like Amazon (AMZN) and Walmart (WMT) have put upon their peers. Some of the companies you have shopped at many times are doing much worse than you would imagine. We will take a look at some of these companies below.
Retail Sector @ A Glance
Dicks Sporting Goods (DKS)
Dicks Sporting Goods has seen tremendous heat over the last year. As you know the company is in the business of selling sporting goods and I'm sure you've done a lot of shopping with them. The problem is the big players like Amazon getting into the sporting goods space and taking customers from Dicks each and every day. Take a look at the chart and see the -62% in stock price over the last year it's crazy.
Sears Holdings (SHLD)
Sears is another retailer that seems to be going down the drains. This is a store that used to be an absolute powerhouse for shoppers. This was a store that was in nearly every mall across the United States and began to drop stores left and right. With the competition in online shopping, Sears began to have trouble generating inventory and not too mention, had their largest exterior investor (shareholder) leave operations (Fairholme Capital 28.9 million shareholder) . Just 4 days ago, there were reports the company will be closing 64 more stores and top appliance deals such as Whirlpool are leaving shop.
ULTA Beauty (ULTA)
ULTA is yet another retailer that has been on a rough patch over the last year. ULTA produces goods that mainly attract the female crowd and was once another powerhouse for this consumer base. When online shopping became more competitive, it was easy for competitors such as Amazon to find these products at reduced costs and offer them to their consumers. The interesting thing with ULTA is their metrics haven't even been that bad. Recent reports showed strong e-commerce sales and increased consumer traffic. This was good and bad at the same time. Yes the company has been able to retain customers, but at the same time many of the companies shareholders have seen drastic selloffs in the stock price. It will be interesting to see if ULTA can bounce back in the retail space, or if this is just the beginning to being outsourced to competitors such as Amazon
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