“As a testament to the gloomy outlook for brick-and-mortar retailers, short interest in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (ticker: XRT) has soared to 273 percent of float, the highest among U.S. equity products at the end of 2016. On Jan. 4, Macy’s Inc. and Kohl’s Corp. pointed to weak holiday sales when slashing their full-year earnings forecasts during the after-hours session,” according to Bloomberg.
Other consumer discretionary and retail ETFs have been thriving, namely those with heavy tilts toward e-commerce names.
The trend away from traditional department stores and apparel retailers to online shopping destinations should benefit the Amplify Online Retail ETF (NasdaqGM: IBUY), which debuted last year. IBUY, which is comprised of global companies that generate at least 70% of revenue from online or virtual sales, has been one of the best-performing retail ETFs since its inception.
IBUY provides exposure to many familiar online names, such as WayFair Inc (NYSE: W), Etsy (NasdaqGS: ETSY), FTD Companies (NasdaqGS: FTD), Overstock Com Inc (NasdaqGS: OSTK) and Priceline (NasdaqGS: PCLN).
For more information on the consumer sector, visit our consumer discretionary category.