Brean Capital On Retail Sales: Holiday Season 'Decent' But 'Not Exceptional'

Liz Pierce of Brean Capital stated in a note on Friday that the 2014 holiday shopping season has been “decent” but “not exceptional.”

“While traffic and conversion was up significantly over the Super Saturday weekend likely due to it being the last weekend before Christmas, more seasonal weather, Hanukkah and a modest increase in the promotional cadence, we believe sales were probably just in-line with plans for the weekend,” Pierce wrote.

The analyst adds that based on first-hand observations, “quite a few” shoppers were walking around malls without bags, likely attributed to the convenience of online shopping and one extra shopping day this year versus last year. Pierce also states that traffic observed on Wednesday was “relatively light,” however as expected, almost every shopper had at least one bag.

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In terms of promotional activity, department stores and big-box retailers increased both the breadth and depth of promotions during the last couple of shopping days, offering discounts as high as 80 percent. Pierce states that the strategy to attract last-minute shoppers “seemed to work.”

Bottom line, Pierce speculates that total holiday sales are “still trending below projections.” As such, the analyst maintains an outlook that is in-line with the National Retail Federation's 4.1 percent increase in holiday sales.

The SPDR S&P Retail (ETF) (NYSE: XRT) traded at $95.66, up 0.44 percent at Friday's open. It is up more than 2 percent over the past month.