Jo-Ann Stores and Lowe's rock Black Friday, dollar stores don't

The deals and general craziness of Black Friday have already been well-covered in this space, so I thought it might be interesting to turn your attention to the actual stock reactions. My intentions were simple enough (but aren't they always?): grab a list of retail stocks and calculate the returns from the close on Wednesday, November 22, through this morning. Sorting the list would give a quick (but early) overview of how the Street was reacting to the "day."

I have ample data manipulation tools at my disposal, so I figured this to be an easy task. What I didn't count on was not being able to find what I considered to be a satisfactory list of retail stocks. The lists I found were either too broad or too narrow. I wanted the usual suspects like Best Buy (NYSE:BBY), Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT), and Gap (NYSE:GPS), while also picking up some of the smaller players like Bebe Stores (NASDAQ:BEBE) and Chico's FAS (NYSE:CHS). Additionally I wanted to capture some of the brands like Crocs (NASDAQ:CROX) and dELiA*s (NASDAQ:DLIA), while excluding consumer goods producers and fast food restaurants.

Unable to find a list that suited my (admittedly arbitrary) desires, I began to handpick names and compile a list of 72 stocks. The graph below shows the top and bottom performing stocks through noon today.



Blue Nile (NASDAQ:NILE), Pier One (NYSE:PIR), and Coldwater Creek (NASDAQ:CWTR) are the weakest stocks, while Lowe's (NYSE:LOW), American Eagle Outfitters (NASDAQ:AEOS), and Jo-Ann Stores (NYSE:JAS) are the strongest.

As you can infer from the graph, the bulk of the returns are flat to lower as two of the "best performing" stocks, Aeropostale (NYSE:ARO) and Limited Brands (NYSE:LTD), show a loss. In other words, buying just ahead of Black Friday doesn't seem like it would have been a good short-term trading strategy. Going forward though, I would expect to see some stocks distinguish themselves and separate from the pack. With my list now created (and saved!) it should be much easier to track. If there is interest in this, I can post periodic updates.

Nick Perry is an analyst with Schaeffer's Investment Research.