Zero Shopping Days Left Until Christmas

Christmas is hours away. The chance to shop has only hours left as well. This means every retailer of any size knows what its fate is. Chief executive officers are sitting in their offices, or at home or on vacation, as the last data come in from their far-flung empires of stores and websites. Each of these CEOs, therefore, also knows whether his or her company was a winner or a loser. The balance of the world, outside a few top lieutenants, may not know for weeks, or even months, when these retailers report earnings for the period that included the holidays.

Wall Street believes it already has forecast who won and lost, at least based on the stock prices of the public corporations with large retail businesses. And some of the winners and losers are surprising.

Shares of Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) are off over 2% in the past month to $750. The conventional wisdom is that Amazon once again ruled e-commerce and grabbed market share from most large retailers. An alternative argument is that Amazon spent so much on free shipping and other marketing programs that its profits margins will be small. Perhaps this is why its shares have not rallied ahead of Christmas.

At the far end of the list of companies that have failed during the final month of the year is Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD), to no one’s shock. Its shares are down 32% over the past 30 days to $8.79. Same-stores sales at its two big units — Kmart and Sears — have fallen quarter after quarter. So has revenue for the parent company, which largely survives on a lifeline of cash from CEO Eddie Lampert, which comes in the form of debt.

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The action of Best Buy Co. Inc.’s (NYSE: BBY) stock has signaled excited optimism, followed by a quick move to pessimism. Its shares traded at $46.50 a month ago. Strong earnings results took the stock to $49.40 a share. Now, the shares trade below $45, down 4% over the period. What became a belief that the consumer electronics store could hold its own against Amazon turned to skepticism, perhaps based on years of failure in the effort to keep pushing revenue higher.

At the mid-market stores, carnage among stocks is almost universal. Badly run Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) has laid off thousands of people and closed scores of stores. As CEO Terrence James Lundgren departs, the company’s stock has dropped 17% in a month to $36.50. Joining Macy’s in the decimated department store retail category is Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE: JWM), shares of which are off 15% to $50, and Kohl’s Corp. (NYSE: KSS), down 9% to $48.75.

Among the specialty retailers, particularly those aimed at young people, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF) is off 21% in the past month to $11.86, a 52-week low. American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (NYSE: AEO), down 18% to $15, and Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS), down 12% to $22.50, are in the same boat. The sell-off of most of these stocks accelerated in the final week of the last month of trading, as a deepening gloom has overtaken the industry. That is either because of concern overall retailer sales were slow or traditional retailers lost out to e-commerce.

Oddly, the aircraft carrier of retail, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT), has matched Amazon’s performance almost exactly, off 2% to $69.50. There must be a theory that the two dominant companies in the industry will rattle the rest with sharp increases in market share.

The books on the 2016 holidays are closed. Only a small number of top executives know what they look like. It is too late for them to cross their fingers.

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