The 'unhappy combination' challenging US retail

Amid a market that has chopped sideways so far in 2018, the stocks of US retailers have generally performed well, with a number of major name department stores and retailers seeing positive movement to their share price this year.

Partly, this reflects how depressed expectations became in the latter half of 2017. How the shift to e-commerce is transforming the US retail market For example, Macy's' share price was pushed down to a forward price/earnings ratio of 6x at a time when numerous ETFs betting on the death of brick-and-mortar retail were being launched. Companies with weak fundamentals can make good investments. It also reflects optimism about the impact of the Trump tax cuts on the American economy, which began to trickle into paycheques from February. This boost to consumer spending helped the first...