What to buy? E-commerce sales expected to soar on Black Friday
Nov. 25, 2020 2:29 PM ET|About: Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN)|By: Clark Schultz, SA News Editor
There is little question that online sales will soar this holiday season with the pandemic flaring up across the U.S.
Jefferies forecasts a record holiday for e-commerce, with sales growth of 33% vs. +14% a year ago.
"We expect a surge in COVID cases to drive strong e-commerce sales this holiday season, with over 50% of consumers planning to spend more online according to our proprietary survey," updates Jefferies retail analyst Brent Thill.
Jefferies has Buy-rated Amazon ( AMZN +1.7%) and Etsy ( ETSY +6.0%) slotted as its top picks for the holiday shopping season.
"AMZN is best positioned to benefit in our view as massive investments in logistics allow it to better meet elevated demand... We also think judging how much someone will spend on ETSY is hard given ongoing improvements to search and discovery that are improving frequency and reach."
The read on eBay ( EBAY -0.6%) is less promising after the company screened poorly in its consumer surveys.
Some of the companies looking for a rush of orders between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday include Stitch Fix (NASDAQ: SFIX), Target (NYSE: TGT), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), Wayfair (NYSE: W), Chewy (NYSE: CHWY), Target ( TGT), Walmart (NYSE: WMT), Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY), Dick's Sporting Goods (NYSE: DKS), Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) and Gap (NYSE: GPS).
Of course, the big tests could be for department stores chains like Macy's ( M +1.5%), Kohl's ( KSS -0.2%) and Nordstrom ( JWN +15.0%), which face traffic concerns on Main Street and huge short bets on Wall Street.
For investors, the question is how much of the big holiday e-commerce boom is already baked into share prices.
A catch-all online retail investment is the Amplify Online Retail ETF (NYSEARCA: IBUY). |
