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Some people make holiday shopping lists. We're making a holiday stock list. Today on Motley Fool Money. Today is Tuesday, December 2nd. Welcome to Motley Fool Money. I'm your host, Emily Flippen, and today I'm joined by Motley Fool analyst, Jason Holland, Asit Sharma, to talk about favorite rule-breaking stocks for your holiday shopping list.
But let's be real, this time of year, we're all surrounded by sales, shipping deadlines, holiday ads, but just because companies are spending doesn't necessarily mean consumers are too. We're going to be discussing some holiday radar stocks here.
But first, I want to have to start with what we saw this past weekend with Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, as well as some broader commentary around holiday spending as we end out the year. I don't know if anybody else feels this way, Austin and Jason. But personally, I feel like this holiday shopping season has just been a lot of deal fatigue from shoppers.
I mean, I see discounts everywhere. The consumer does seem a little bit over it. And it does seem like some of our initial data backs this up. Initial reports are showing retail sales climbing around 4% on Black Friday this year in comparison to last, but that doesn't account for inflation. If you look at inflation, it's around 3% right now.
So in practice, I kind of think consumers were a little flat this year. Salesforce also collected data that showed average selling prices were up 7% year-over-year for Black Friday shopping, but order volumes were down 1%. Jason, I want to start with you. When you hear that and when you look at the Black Friday and holiday data this year, what stands out to you about the consumer?
I think the vibe check and the data line up here for me. We have a bifurcated economy where the haves have a lot and are supporting the big headline numbers. But we also have a large and maybe growing portion of consumers who are having to spend less to make ends meet.
Now, there's how I feel as a person, but then there's the investor in me who thinks that the companies that know their customer and know what they are, are the ones that can continue to win. You look at companies like Amazon, ticker AMZN, Walmart, ticker WMT, they lead on selection and price. The caveat, of course, that Amazon is playing a different game in groceries than Walmart.
Then you look at companies like TJX Companies, and that's the ticker, continues to win because they're the smartest buyers of goods that manufacturers and distributors have got to get off of warehouse shelves, that they know they can quickly sell for cheap and get good margins. Then you have the Targets and Kohl's of the world, Target ticker TGT and Kohl's KSS.
It seems like they're stuck in the middle, likely losing customers on both of those demographic ends. while struggling with higher costs, just like everybody else is along the way. You find the companies that have the go-to-market strategies that continue to work, and the excellent operations. Those are the ones that are going to win as investors.
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