Retail Sales Lift ETFs In June, But It’s Not Frivolous Spending

If you took that rebate check and went shopping, give yourself a hearty pat on the back, because you just might have helped some retail exchange traded funds (ETFs) in June.

Retail sales overall rose 4.3%, reports Anne D’Innocenzio for the Associated Press. Wal-Mart (WMT) and Costco (COST) in particular benefited from the spending, likely because people whose dollars are already stretched by soaring gasoline and food costs wanted to use the extra dough to stock up on necessities and 10-gallon drums of oatmeal.

At Wal-Mart, stores open a year or longer saw sales jump 5.8%, the largest increase in four years. The discount retailer also said it expected second-quarter profit to be higher than it had forecast. Sales at Costco rose 9%, handily beating the analysts’ predictions of 8.1%.

Who knows? Maybe Wal-Mart will be able to keep up the pace with an assist from Martha Stewart, who is planning to expand her line of crafts at the stores this month, according to the Chicago Tribune. When waterslides and swimming pools begin to bore you, perhaps Martha can interest you in a paper mâché project this summer?

• Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (XLP), down 5.9% year-to-date
• Vanguard Consumer Staples (VDC), down 6.4% year-to-date
• Retail HOLDRs (RTH), down 5.6% year-to-date