Thankfully, Thanksgiving raised a false alarm in the retail space. The sloth during the Thanksgiving weekend was finally made up and the U.S. holiday season turned out much stronger than the past few years, making 2014 a merry one for retailers. In all likelihood, purse strings were loosened as economic conditions brightened up, the job market improved and gasoline prices plunged.
Notably, consumer sentiment jumped to 93.6 in December from 88.8 in November, as per the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan. The final reading represents the highest level in nearly eight years.
U.S. holiday retail sales climbed 5.5% year over year during the period of November 1 to December 24, as per the MasterCard Advisors' SpendingPulse. Casual dining and lodging recorded double-digit sales, followed by mid single-digit growth in womenswear and single-digit growth in apparel and jewelry sales (read: Complete Your Holiday Shopping with These 3 Consumer ETFs).
The reading from MasterCard Advisors' SpendingPulse reveals that the prediction of 4.1% growth in holiday sales by National Retail Federation (NYSE: NRF) might just come true.
E-Commerce Driving Holiday Sales
While queuing up and camping out in front of stores has become an American tradition, e-commerce or online has become the major source of sales. This is especially true as online sales surged 15% year over year and hit $48.3 billion for the first 51 days of the November to December, as per the web analytics firm ComScore.
The heavy online traffic was seen in the most recent weekend before Christmas with 36% growth in sales. This was followed by 32% increase on Thanksgiving Day and 26% on Black Friday. Cyber Monday also emerged as a stronger online shopping day, hitting $2.04 billion in sales for the first time. Cyber Monday sales jumped 17% year over year (read: Internet ETFs and Stocks Set to Surge Post Cyber Monday).
Three Cheers for Semiconductors
Apart from retail, another corner of the broad market is also flourishing this holiday season. Though the holiday numbers have not yet been released, semiconductors enjoyed a huge rally with most of companies hitting decade highs boosted by strong holiday optimism.
Capacity utilization, advanced technologies, smartphone upgrades, and new gadgets are fueling demand for chips and other semiconductor products. The PC market is stabilizing and is seeing accelerated growth thanks to the trend ...
/www.benzinga.com/trading-ideas/long-ideas/14/12/5111447/3-etfs-stocks-surging-this-holiday-season alt=3 ETFs & Stocks Surging This Holiday Season>Full story available on Benzinga.com
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