Retail Winners And Losers As Christmas Shoppers Hit The Home Stretch

The Dow just suffered its first two-day drop since Election Day and still hasn’t hurdled over 20,000, prompting a whine or two before Christmas. Today is our “last opportunity to see if Santa is going to deliver” that 20K present to the bulls, says Naeem Aslam from ThinkMarkets. It’s probably too soon to sound like kids who don’t find what they want under the tree. There’s still next week and next year, after all. What to do instead? Buy a few good-looking retail stocks as holiday shoppers hit the home stretch, while avoiding (or maybe even shorting?) the sector’s stinkers, suggests our call of the day. It comes from Patrick McKeever at MKM Partners. McKeever’s picks include Dick’s Sporting Goods, Dollar Tree, Five Below, and Ollie’s Bargain Outlet (a Pennsylvania-based chain that went public last year). Ollie’s is better protected than most from e-commerce, thanks to its “treasure-hunt experience,” among other factors. This “competitive advantage appears to be playing itself out this holiday season,” he says in a note about MKM’s pre-Christmas store checks. Read more at Market Watch.