June Retail Sales Data; Target Beats Wal-Mart Again

Excerpt from our One Page Annotated Wall Street Journal Summary (which you can get emailed to you every morning by signing up here):

Mixed Retail-Sales Data Cloud 2nd-Half Views

• Summary: "The International Council of Shopping Centers said June same-store sales increased 2.6%, below the 3.8% average gain for the first five months of the year and on the low end of its expectations." Results by segment, in order of sales volume, as follows. Discounters: Wal-Mart (WMT) up 1.2%, Costco up 4.0%, Target (TGT) up 4.8%, Dollar General (DG) up 2.5%, Family Dollar (FDO) up 3.6%. Department stores: Federated Department Stores (FD), which owns Macy's and Bloomingdales, up 1.7%, JC Penney (JCP) up 4.3%, Nordstrom (JWN) up 4.7%, Dillard's (DDS) down 1.0%, Neiman Marcus [privately owned] up 6.1%, Saks (SKS) up 4.7%. Apparel: TJX (TJX) up 4%, Gap (GPS) down 6%, Kohl's (KSS) up 7.1%, Limited (LTD) up 3.0%, AnnTaylor (ANN) up 12%. Miscellaneous: Pier 1 Imports (PIR) down 18.4%. Teen Apparel: Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) down 4%, American Eagle Outfitters (AEOS) up 11.0%.
• Comment on related stocks/ETFs: The retailers reported their numbers in the morning, and the market rose during the day. There's no doubt about the strength of the economy, so weaker than expected retail numbers may have been taken as a positive as they reduce the chances the Fed will continue to raise rates after the next increase.