It has been a bumpy ride for retailers this year and the stock market indicates that. Many investors are not very bullish about retail stocks going into the holiday season when typically, this is the best time of year for those stocks when sales get a nice boost from the influx of shoppers. What we are seeing now with retail stocks is a similar picture to that from March of 2020 when there was a great selloff due to the pandemic. People are just not confident that with the massive number of inventories that retailers can get out of the slump this season. 

On the other hand, retail sales grew more than the eight previous months in October, but sales still fell in certain categories such as electronics and sporting goods. A survey of 1,000 participants was done by Goldman Sachs in which it asked consumers if they would spend less this year and about 50% said they would. This indicates that people are still out and shopping, however, they are being more particular as to what they are spending their discretionary income on. With the uncertainty of the stock market and inflation affecting people’s pockets, it will be interesting to see how everything shakes out going into 2023. 

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Holiday Shopping Looks Anything But Festive for Retail Stocks (wealthmanagement.com)