Ugly Day for Retailers — Wednesday’s IP Market Recap

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].

Three Up

• Alpha Natural (NYSE:ANR[13]): Up 5.54% (50 cents) to $9.53
• Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU[14]): Up 4.83%% ($4.68) to $101.45
• Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN[15]): Up 3.67%% (17 cents) to $4.80

Three Down

• Radioshack (NYSE:RSH[16]): Down 4.22% (10 cents) to $2.27
• Under Armour (NYSE:UA[17]): Down 3.25% ($1.60) to $47.65
• Vringo (NASDAQ:VRNG[18]): Down 2.36% (7 cents) to $2.89

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.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2012/12/wednesdays-ip-market-recap-hlf-rimm-rl-kors-amzn-anf/

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