Spending data from Black Friday showed that consumers spent only slightly more than last year with overall sales remaining essentially unchanged. Earlier this month many retailers reported that sales were slower than general for the month of November. Naturally, the hope was that Black Friday would offset the slow start to the month. Because data shows only a slight increase in consumer spending, this is definitely a bad sign for retailers no matter how the administration, companies, or media tries to spin it.

There is however some good news. Online sales increased by 35 percent for Black Friday over last year. The obvious play would seem to be online retail sales companies, specifically Amazon.com. At 131.74 it is overpriced. Furthermore, It has a P/E of 77.27. These fundamentals mean it wont have much to gain even if it does get really good November numbers. However, there are other companies that benefit from this increase in online retail sales. For example Best Buy is facing decreased competition due to the recent bankruptcy of Circuit City. In 2008, 2 billion dollars of its sales were web volume sales. Therefore, as a company that typically gets great Black Friday numbers, its going to get even better numbers this year from internet sales. Another company whose shares are cheap and who has significant online sales is Edward Lamperts Sears Holdings. It is facing very tough competition from Wal-Mart but it has a much larger Internet base than Wal-Mart does. Therefore, it has much more to gain, judging by the preliminary Black Friday reports. At the end of the day, the Black Friday numbers could have been better for retailers, but they also could have been worse. When examining mixed results one has to gain from the good news an not lose because of the bad news. Therefore, we believe both Best Buy and Edward Lamperts Sears Holdings are great buys that gained a lot from the strong online showing on Black Friday.