Here’s What’s Really Causing Retail’s ‘Anti-Amazon Rally’

Traditional retailers are widely known to be struggling in the competition with e-commerce, and Jim Cramer said Thursday’s “anti-Amazon” retail rally was not a consumer-driven comeback. “[It] was a classic relief rally, where certain stocks just came down too far too fast, and then we got numbers that weren’t quite as bad as people had feared,” the “Mad Money” host said. The stocks of brick-and-mortar players like Kohl’s, Macy’s, L Brands, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Costco all skyrocketed as earnings reports indicated that the retail environment is not as bad as analysts anticipated. “When you’re as negative as most portfolio managers had become on retail, it really doesn’t take much to get the group raging,” Cramer said. The negativity stemmed from hit after hit to the retail space that occurred in recent weeks, from Lululemon’s over-20-percent drop to news of Urban Outfitters’ slumping sales to Sears’ going-concern letter. Then on Wednesday, Citigroup’s credit research branch released a note slapping a “sell” signal on all the retailers that Cramer called “a well-written obituary for bricks-and-mortar merchants.” See more at CNBC.