This holiday season is the best in six years, reversing all the woes in the retail sector stemming from thousands of store closings and a large number of bankruptcies. This is especially true as sales (excluding automobile) climbed 4.9% between Nov 1 and Dec 24, representing the fastest growth since 2011, according to Mastercard’s SpendingPulse report. Notably, online sales rose 18.1%.

Shoppers spent a record more than $800 billion during the holiday season boosted by growing consumer confidence, rising employment and early discounts. Electronics and appliances topped the shopping list with 7.5% growth – the strongest in 10 years. This was followed by sales increase of 5.9% for jewelry and 5.1% for home furnishings and home improvement. Per another firm Customer Growth Partners, shoppers spent $598 billion from the start of the holiday season to Christmas Eve, up from $565 billion for the same period last year.

Holiday sales growth is much better than what the National Retail Federation (NRF) had predicted. For the November-December period, NRF had projected holiday sales (excluding autos) to grow as much as 4%, and online sales to grow 11-15%.

The biggest winner seems to be Amazon.com (AMZN – Free Report) according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll conducted this month. The e-commerce giant had its biggest holiday season with more than 4 million people opting the Amazon Prime trial for one week during the period.

A robust holiday season drove up many corners of the consumer space including the e-commerce, giving a boost to many stocks and ETFs in the final quarter of 2017. Below, we have highlighted four stocks & ETFs that are leading the space this holiday season.

ETF Corner

VanEck Vectors Retail ETF (RTH – Free Report)

This fund provides exposure to the 26 largest retail firms by tracking the MVIS US Listed Retail 25 Index. It is highly concentrated on the top firm Amazon at 18.1% while other firms hold no more than 7.6% share. The product has amassed $61.9 million in its asset base and trades in a light average daily volume of 13,000 shares. It charges 35 bps in annual fees and has gained 12.1% since the start of November. RTH has a Zacks ETF Rank #3 (Hold) with a Medium risk outlook.
 

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