Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over daily movements, we do like to keep an eye on market changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
The most important few days of the retail shopping season are coming to an end, and despite larger crowds, the amount of money the average shopper spent declined this year. Analysts said that 141 million unique shoppers hit the stores this weekend while only 139 million went out last year. In 2012, the average amount spent was $423.55, but the larger crowd this year only spent on average $407.02. So with those kinds of results, it's clear that there will be some retail winners while others end up losers. But before we get into that, let's take a look at how the major indexes are performing this afternoon.
As of 1 p.m. EST the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI -0.12%) is down 5 points or 0.04%, while the S&P 500 is higher by 0.17% and the Nasdaq is also hovering around break-even.
One well-known brand that may be struggling this holiday season is Coach (TPR -0.91%) as shoppers shift their attention and dollars to a fresher version of the mid- to high-range fashion with Michael Kors (CPRI -2.72%). The new kid on the block has been growing sales and earnings at an astonishing clip over the past few quarters while Coach has struggled to keep even a limited amount of growth. This holiday season may be the nail in the coffin, where Kors takes the reins and truly shows its dominance over the competition. Currently shares of Kors are higher by 0.58% while Coach is off by nearly 2%.
Online shopping continues to grow, and investors were waiting to see how the big online players would perform. eBay (EBAY -1.59%) is up more than 2% today and Amazon.com (AMZN -1.11%) is around break-even. A report from Stifel Nicolaus noted that eBay's sales on Thanksgiving were up 26% year over year while they rose 39% on Black Friday and 28% on Saturday. Additionally, during the first three weeks of November, sales had increased 13%. Amazon reported a 35% increase on Friday and 24% rise on Saturday.
