Wall Street believes these stocks can survive Amazon's retail apocalypse
The retail stock carnage among Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) victims is one of the biggest market stories during the past year.
But the Wall Street firm that was early in calling out the risk for some retailers with its prescient "Death by Amazon" index in 2014 is now saying there are companies that can survive the e-commerce giant's onslaught.
To complement "our existing … index of companies most vulnerable to Amazon's rise, we are introducing a new index of retail companies that should be less exposed to the DBA [death by Amazon] threat," Bespoke Investment Group said in a note to clients Tuesday. "Our new index is composed of retail and apparel companies that have their own brands or focus on goods that Amazon ignores."
Source: Bespoke Investment Group
The research firm cited how its equal-weighted "Death by Amazon" index is down 21 percent in the past year from July 29, 2016, to Aug. 21, 2017, versus the 8 percent drop of its new "Amazon Survivors" list. This compares with the 26 percent return for Amazon shares and 11 percent gain for the S&P 1500 in the same time period.
Here are 10 top-performing stocks on Bespoke's Amazon Survivors list.
Others on Wall Street are still negative on the brick-and-mortar retailer industry.
Amazon is "eating the retail world," MKM Partners analyst Rob Sanderson wrote last month in a note to clients. Sanderson cited how the median sales growth for top-20 U.S. retailers was 2.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016, 0.8 percent during the first quarter of 2017 and is forecast to decline by 0.2 percent in the second quarter of this year.
In comparison, Amazon's sales grew more than 20 percent in each of the past four quarters. The e-commerce giant is the "best long-term growth story available to investors today," Sanderson added.
The analyst said Amazon's market share in key retail categories such as sporting goods, clothing, personal care and electronics will only continue to accelerate from here.
— CNBC's Lauren Thomas contributed to this report.
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