The final stretch of the year has historically been favorable for the stock market, and few sectors are as tied to the calendar as retail. With the holiday shopping season, from Black Friday through the December rush, now coming into view, retailers are heading into their most important stretch of the year. In each of the past couple of years, the retail sector has seen a seasonal tailwind between October and December. If that pattern repeats, a handful of names look especially well-positioned to benefit.
The broad retail sector has actually lagged the market this year. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (NYSEARCA: XRT), the group's benchmark, is slightly down year-to-date and recently slipped below its 200-day moving average. But beneath that underperforming sector average, several individual names have shown genuine relative strength, vastly outperforming the sector ETF, many peers, and even the S&P 500 benchmark. Those are the names worth watching most closely into year-end, so let’s look at several below.
