Winners and losers from November retail sales report

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Despite the benefit of Black Friday, retail sales slumped in the month of November to mark the biggest drop in nearly a year.

Retail sales for the month declined 0.6%, tripling the 0.2% drop anticipated ahead of the print. Electronics and home furnishings retailers led declines with respective sales declines of 1.5% and 2.6% sequentially and 4.4% and 3.2% from 2021. Impacted tickers included Wayfair (W), Williams Sonoma (NYSE:WSM), Best Buy (NYSE:BBY), each of which pulled back on Thursday.

Department stores, a sector populated by the likes of Kohl’s Corporation (KSS) -3.45%, Macy’s (M) -3.15%, Nordstrom (JWN) -3.56%, and Dillard’s (DDS) -3.09%, also declined sharply. Sales for the sector slipped 2.9% from October and 3% from the same period in 2021, likely aided by widespread discounting in the space. Meanwhile, building materials and garden center sales came down 2.5% sequentially and motor vehicle and parts dealers dropped 2.3% from October. However, the latter two categories remained on a positive trend year over year.

Non-store retailers, dominated by e-commerce players (IBUY) like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) -2.52%, Chewy (CHWY) -5.21%, and Etsy (ETSY) -4.31%, also fell 0.9% sequentially amid an extended holiday shopping season. Deep discounts and early sales events, including an extra prime day in the fall, appeared to erode some optimism on Black Friday deals.

On the positive end, positive sequential trends were evident for grocery stores, health and personal care retailers, as well as food service and drinking locations. The largest year over year advances were evident in gas stations, grocery stores, and miscellaneous store retailers, a category that includes florists, office suppliers, gift stores, and second-hand stores.

Dig into the details of the retail sales data.