A tipping point for online retail November 18, 2015 Archives | Unsubscribe How to Survive the Retail Apocalypse A tipping point for online retail Dreadful earnings Plus: When it comes to stop-losses…  Greg Guenthner coming to you from Baltimore, MD... Hate Christmas shopping? Here's the best way to get out of it… Tell your wife we're entering retail hell. Buildings are crumbling. Shelves are bare. Not a soul can be seen in the neighborhood strip mall. It's just no place for a lady. It's true. Even the King of Lower Prices, Almighty Walmart has lost his grip on the shopping masses… "Earlier this year, the stock market value of Amazon.com surpassed that of Walmart, a turn of events that many saw as indicative of how badly brick-and-mortar big box retailers have lagged behind in building up their e-commerce," Fortune reports. "Walmart is now hustling to bridge the gap, pouring billions into its tech to claw back some market share. Target, also a laggard, is similarly spending as much on tech as on its 1,800 stores. Both those companies, though, generate digital sales that are still only a small percentage of total sales, and a fraction of Amazon's." And all this might be too little, too late. If stock prices are any indication, it's going to be a cold, dark winter for the big retail chains. This earnings season has been a disaster for retail. Earlier this month we noted a nice beat from American Eagle Outfitters. That tidbit suggested that specialty retailers and boutiques are shaking off the Amazon Curse. But even these stocks are getting dragged straight to hell with the likes of Walmart and J.C. Penney. The list of failures is getting longer by the day. Macy's? Cooked – down 42% over the past six months. Nordstrom? Down 20% over the same timeframe. Dick's Sporting Goods? Awful earnings sent this athletic retailer lower more than 10% yesterday alone. There's absolutely no way to sugarcoat it—the retail sector is crashing. But Amazon is just a few ticks away from all-time highs. Is this retail mismatch a sign that the tipping point for traditional malls and shops has finally arrived? Amazon has nearly doubled in 2015, while the S&P 500 has gone nowhere. And brick and mortar retailers are dying by the score… Traditional retailers can't even get their online sales anywhere close to Amazon's. Bloomberg reports that efforts by big-box retailers to attract online sales isn't even generating new revenue. It's simply cannibalizing off their own in-store sales. Here's the result: Does this morbid picture mean its lights out for every storefront, big box, and boutique? I doubt it. Niche retailers and smaller shops should be able to compete with Amazon in the long-run. But that doesn't change the fact that these stocks are poison right now. Avoid 'em like the plague unless you take pleasure from burning cash. There's just nowhere to run from the Amazon juggernaut.  Sincerely, Greg Guenthner [Ed. Note: Send your feedback here: rude@agorafinancial.com - and follow me on Twitter: @GregGuenthner] 1 Word That Will Make You Richer than Everyone Else There is one word that separates the rich from the poor... The powerful from the weak... And those who know it have a MASSIVE advantage over everyone else. Click here to discover it now. Rude Numbers When to Buy... When to Sell 68% of all stocks trading on major U.S. exchanges remain below their respective 200-day moving averages... $42.28 buys a barrel of crude this morning. Oil is in the green to start the day. It's up about 1.4%... $2.38 is the price of natural gas this morning. Natty is quietly coming off its lows. It's up a couple of pennies to start the day... $1,068 is where you'll find gold futures this morning. The yellow metal can't seem to catch a bid. It's treading water in early trading... 2,052 marks the spot for S&P futures before the morning bell. Stocks are set to open just barely in the green today... Rude Trends When to Buy... When to Sell "I've been fairly disciplined about obeying my stops," writes a self-described novice. "At times the stock just hasn't caught fire, triggered a stop, and then I close it. Other times a stop has been triggered during a broad pullback, I sell, and then watch it zoom back when the market gets over Yellen's latest jawbone job or whatever else was going on with the price of eggs in Hong Kong. Would it be right to differentiate these two and allow for more tolerance in the second case?" As a rule, I tend to give longer-term plays more leeway than my quick trades. The best trades tend to start "working" right away. So it never hurts to jettison a short-term that isn't moving in your favor, because that frees up capital for your next move. Look, you'll always have those trades that trigger a stop—and then jet higher. That's no fun. But you can't let it get in your head. We're in a historically difficult market for trading right now. It will pass eventually and you'll find that your stocks won't play so many games with your stop losses… Ignore At Your Own Peril Today's Must Read Links The Closest Thing to a Modern-Day Miracle You May EVER See Gold Is Dead: This Is the Next Safe Haven Governments Around the World Are Already Preparing for This Collapse Add rude@agorafinancial.com to your address book: Whitelist us Additional Articles & Commentary: Daily Reckoning Website Join the conversation! Follow us on social media: The Rude Awakening is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We do not rent or share your email address. By submitting your email address, you consent to Agora Financial delivering daily email issues and advertisements. 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