Billionaire's Portfolio

November 23, 2017, 7:00 pm EST

Yesterday we talked about the comeback underway in Wal-Mart and the steps it has made to challenge Amazon, and to challenge the idea that Amazon will crush everyone.

It’s beginning to look like the “decline of the retail store” may have bottomed too.

And it so happens that it may have bottomed precisely when a new ETF launched to capitalize on that story. ProShares launched it yesterday, and that is the name of it –ProShares Decline Of The Retail Store ETF. It gives you short exposure to bricks and mortar retailers.

It’s off to a bad start–down 3% in the first day of trading.

For retail, the week started with a big earnings beat for Advance Auto Parts (the stock was up as much as 20% on Tuesday). Then it was Wal-Mart. And today we had earnings beats in Foot Locker and Abercrombie and Fitch.

With this, while the Dow and S&P 500 were down on the day, the small-cap (Russell 2000) was up nicely. Here’s why …

As bad as retail has been, the energy sector remains the worst performing for the year–down 11% year-to-date as a sector and the only sector in the red. This, as oil has reversed from down 22% on the year, to up around 5%, with a very bullish outlook.

This sets up for a big year ahead for energy stocks. And if you believe the worst of the economic challenges are behind us, the survivors in retail could have quite a revival–especially if Amazon begins to see more regulatory scrutiny.

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