By Sheraz Mian

As we had seen with the monthly retail sales numbers in the recent past, the retail picture may not be as bad as the dismal labor market would indicate. In a happy development for some if not all retailers, retail sales data released this morning indicates that consumers spent 3.6% more on holiday shopping this year between the critical Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve period than they did last year.

By Leena Rao

It appears that the wintry mess that hit the Eastern seaboard over the past weekend turned out to be a boon to online retailers. comScore says that e-commerce holiday spending showed an uptick thanks to the blizzards that hit the East Coast over the past weekend. The final shopping weekend before Christmas saw a 13 percent growth rate in online spending from the previous year. And the full week posted a 6 percent yearly increase in spending, setting a one-week sales record with more than $4.8 billion in spending.

People are shopping online and buying everything from books to electronics. Amazon.com (AMZN) is the place that over 75 million people use to make their purchases each month.

Amazon.com provides a great service but what about the stock? We analyze the key fundamentals, growth rates, profit margins and relative valuations below.

Jeff Bezos the CEO of Amazon.com has surprised many over the years as he built AMZN into a major online retailer that is profitable and approaching $30 billion in revenue. In 2009, investors have gravitated to the stock which is now valued at over $56 billion dollars after a 170% run up year to date. See the dramatic market cap gains in the chart below.

Overall consumer spending is holding steady, even as we've picked up major improvements in holiday spending for the 2009 season.

In short, overall consumer spending is virtually the same as in our previous ChangeWave survey. But holiday spending is extraordinarily better than a year ago (November 2008), when just 10% of respondents said they'd be spending more and 59% less.

Below is the list of companies that will comprise Standard & Poor's Dividend Aristocrats after the close of business on December 18th. The changes that will be made to the list were detailed in an earlier post, Big Changes For Dividend Aristocrats Index in 2010.

Actions, as they say, speak louder than words. So, when American Express Co. (AXP) recently bought Revolution Money for $300 million it was a bit of a “Jerry Maguire” moment, only in reverse. Jerry said “help me, help you,” but since Revolution Money has developed an internet-based payment system that cuts costs for merchants, AXP’s take on that famous quote was more like: “let me help you, help me”.

When asked about the acquisition, AXP’s CEO, Kenneth Chenault, said: ““While there are many growth opportunities in our traditional payments businesses, we believe that it is important for us to keep identifying cutting-edge technologies that can extend our leadership into new areas.” Given that merchants currently pay AmEx 4% of purchases while MasterCard (MA) and Visa (V) only charge 2%, the new technology could make AmEx the preferred way to pay as more and more business is transacted online.

The big economic number of the week is the Retail Sales numbers coming out Friday from the U.S. Census Bureau. For those that are interested in looking at more details on the numbers you can go to the Census Bureau. The upcoming numbers are for the month of November. The market is expecting an increase of 0.6% month over month (from Oct to Nov). The prior month saw an increase of 1.4% (from Sep to Oct).

Below is a big picture chart showing all the data from the Census Bureau, which goes back to Jan. 1992. You can see the significance of the financial crisis with the large drop that started in 2008. The recession of the early 2000s doesn't even show a blip compared to the current recession.

Stocks discussed on the in-depth session of Jim Cramer's Mad Money TV Program, Thursday December 10.

This is just one of the market valuations that I have not (and still do not) understand.

Amazon (AMZN) is one of my favorite companies and I buy stuff on the site all of the time. My caution on the stock in recent years (due to a sky high valuation) has been proven wrong, as the stock keeps moving higher. Amazon continues to steal market share in the retail sector from brick and mortar storefronts as more and more people spend more online. I would have thought most people who prefer online shopping would have already adopted it as a way of life, but evidently that trend continues unabated.

By Leena Rao

We heard strong reports for online traffic Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but Tuesday, comScore added definitive spending numbers that indicate that holiday shopping online is picking up this year. For the holiday season-to-date, nearly $16 billion has been spent online, which is a 3 percent increase versus the same period last year. The most recent week ending December 6 reached $4.6 billion in holiday spending, which surpassed any individual spending week in 2008 but was still below two individual weeks in 2007. comScore reports that $887 million was spent on Cyber Monday, but decreased steadily as the week continued.

The latest data on insider buying and selling continues to show an alarming trend in insider sales and very low buying. Selling for the latest week climbed 10.8% to $933.45MM from $842MM. More alarming, however, is the continuing very low levels of buying. Buying for the latest week fell to $17.35MM from $37.7MM. Despite the 60% rally in stocks and the green shoots of supposed recovery, insiders continue to exhibit very little faith in the future price of their own stocks via the use of the personal dollars.

Notable purchases:

A critical five-week stretch for retailers has gotten off to a slow start, and news that November sales results missed analyst expectations have added further weight to an already sagging sector. Retail sales reports from the Black Friday weekend have done little to inspire confidence, and now many retailers are reporting that they came up short on analysts “muted expectations” for last month.

The retail industry reported a 0.5% increase in November, far better than last year’s 7.8% drop but well below the 2.1% growth projected by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) and Children’s Place Retail Stores (PLCE) reported November slides of 17% and 13%, coming in far below analyst expectations and sending shares tumbling in recent sessions.

Stocks discussed on the in-depth session of Jim Cramer's Mad Money TV program, Wednesday December 2.

The Most Despised Bull Market: Amazon (AMZN)

By Leena Rao

Experian Hitwise just released its Cyber Monday stats, with Amazon (AMZN) reportedly topping the list as the most visited retail website Monday, seeing a 44% increase in visits compared to 2008. Amazon received 15.53% of the visits among the top 500 online retail sites. Hitwise says Amazon has been the top visited site on Cyber Monday since 2006.

Stocks discussed on the in-depth session of Jim Cramer's Mad Money TV Program, Tuesday December 1.

Which Pins Will Fall Next: Altera (ALTR), Xilinx (XLNX), Intel (INTC), Microsoft (MSFT), Novellus (NVLS), Applied Materials (AMAT), AMD (AMD), Cypress Semiconductor (CY), Guess? (GES), Ralph Lauren (RL), VF Corp (VFC), J. Crew (JCG), Phillips-Van Heusen (PVH)

The list of 50 Most Valuable U.S. Retail Brands was published by Interbrand earlier this year. The Top 10 of these brands are listed below:

Brand valuation methodology:

By Robin Wauters

Website monitoring service InternetVista vigorously measured the uptime and response time of seven of the most popular Internet retail websites from Monday morning November 24 until midnight November 28, to see how the online outlets would cope with the Black Friday madness, traditionally one of the busiest shopping periods in the United States both on the Web and in meatspace.

The competition is fierce for holiday sales this year. So much so, that when it comes to some retailers, Black Friday started early. And there are myriad ways you can play the bargain-hunting with exchange traded funds (ETFs).

Black Friday is the traditional kick-off for the holiday shopping season, but you may have noticed the deals began popping up a little earlier than usual this year. Retailers are eager to lure consumers out of their hidey-holes, and they may find a receptive audience. Consumers are less afraid of spending right now, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want a great deal. (Retailers feeling cautious).

According to numbers presented by the National Retail Federation, U.S. holiday retail sales from brick-and-mortar outfits will be down 1% this year. On the other hand, comScore (SCOR) expects online retail sales to be up 3% in November and December.

The online retail segment is still a very small portion of the retail market (only 7% of total retail sales according to Forrester Research). However, there is good reason to believe that the segment will continue to grow into a larger share of total retail sales.