by Marc Bastow | December 26, 2012 4:23 pm
It wasn’t quite a Merry Christmas for retailers and investors paid the price as the sector suffered the majority of losses in Wednesday’s trading. Adding to the gloom contained in an east-coast winter storm was a lack of any progress in budget talks, even as President Obama left the warmth of Hawaii to fly back to Washington and try to make a deal.
The net result was a loss on the day despite some good news on the housing front, as the Case-Schiller Index showed [1]another rise in new home prices in October. The Nasdaq took the biggest fall, dropping 0.74% to 2,990.16, while the S&P 500 lost 0.48% to 1,419.83 and the Dow fell 0.19% at 13,114.59.
Retailers winced on news of weakness in sales[2] in the eight weeks leading to Christmas. The sector, once again, was down broadly on the day, led by Michael Kors (NYSE:KORS[3]) which was down nearly 7% by the end of the trading session.
Sector mates Coach (NYSE:COH[4], -5.9%), Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE:ANF[5], -3.5%), and Ralph Lauren (NYSE:RL[6], -3.3%) also saw shares sink on the news. E-tailer Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN[7]) tumbled as well, falling just under 4%.
Bucking the trend was J.C. Penney (NYSE:JCP[8]) which maintained Monday’s momentum from a “buy” recommendation from Oppenheimer (NYSE:OPY[9]). Penney closed on Monday up over 1% and added another 4%% today.
Also basking in some good news was Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM[10]), which saw shares climb over over 11% on no particular news. Herbalife (NYSE:HLF[11]) also rose just over 5% after hiring a strategic advisor and announcing it will hold an analyst and investor meeting next month in response to comments from hedge fund manager Bill Ackman[12].
Marc Bastow is an Assistant Editor at InvestorPlace.com. As of this writing he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
Consumer Discretionary[19], Retail[20], Restaurant[21]
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