Bargains and Necessities Outclass Luxury in Retail Patch: Suttmeier

It has often been said that money doesn't grow on trees but at least one veteran stock analyst is making the case that it just might be found in Dollar Tree (DLTR) and other discount retailers. That's because Richard Suttmeier, chief market strategist at ValuEngine, says investors betting on improving consumer confidence are being mislead.

"The recovery is in the eyes of Wall Street," he says in the attached video. "Things are bustling in New York but they're not on Main Street USA."

While he concedes that there has been some improvement, he argues that it is not nearly robust enough to justify the continued record run of the retailing indexes, such as the Market Vectors Retail etf (RTH) or the Morgan Stanley retail index (^MVR), to all time highs. As a result, his sector sorting analysis says it is time to trade down to the discount retailers.

"The discretionary stocks are the ones to get out of because the money is not there from the consumer standpoint," he says. "It's going to be more the necessities rather than the thrills of luxury in this environment."

As he sees it, if consumers are going to continue to spend, they're going to do it at a DollarTree (DLTR), or Wal-Mart (WMT), or Target (TGT) or Ross Stores (ROST).

To be fair, he's looking at them more as a short-term trend for huge additional upside in these stocks from current levels given that they have all had a great 12 month run already.

"The big box retailers and the discounters are where it's going to go," he says.