Top 5 Retail Stocks To Invest In Right Now

Consumer-facing retailers haven't had the best start to 2013. The expiration of the payroll tax holiday, coupled with an extra chilly spring, kept many shoppers out of store checkout lines.

Target (NYSE: TGT  ) stock wasn't immune to those pressures. The retailer posted a 0.6% drop in comparable sales vs. a 5.3% rise a year ago. Target called the results "disappointing," while slicing its sales and earnings guidance for the rest of the year.

Source: Target.

However, there are some important numbers moving in Target's direction right now. It is succeeding in boosting customer loyalty and in its expansion into Canada. Those strategies could be setting up the company -- and the stock -- for big future gains.

Seeing red
Take Target's loyalty card. The percentage of sales that were made by members of its Red Card program leapt to 17.1%, from 11.6% in the year-ago period. Sure, that's a far cry from the 33% of U.S. transactions that Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX  ) books through its loyalty program. But it's a good start. Considering that Starbucks credits its rewards card with helping it notch industry-leading sales growth, Target is moving in the right direction. As the coffee king knows, rewards members tend to be more engaged shoppers.

Top 5 Retail Stocks To Invest In Right Now: SK3 Group Inc (SKTO)

SK3 Group, Inc. (SK3), formerly CTT International Distributors Inc., is a development-stage company. The Company was formed by the merger of Slabsdirect.com, Inc. and CTT International Distributors Inc. SK3 has one subsidiary, CTT Distributors Ltd., which is the operating company. SK3 is in the e-commerce business and provides non-branded computer and electronic merchandise at discount prices to the Internet consumer through its Website www.cheaperthanthem.com. The Website is hosted by Ezyra E-Business Services, an unrelated party, which charges SK3 an annual fee to host the Website. In December 2009, Healthcare of Today, Inc. acquired controlling interest in the Company. In December 2009, the Company acquired NuvoDigital Technology, Inc., a data security technology firm based in Salt Lake City. In addition, in December 2009, the Company's parent company Healthcare of Today, Inc. acquired Xenotis Pty Ltd. In February 2011, the Company acquired PRN Registry. In March 2011, the Company completed the acquisition of HealthStaff Training Institute. In March 2011, the Company acquired W&M Medical Management, Inc. Effective March 14, 2013, the Company acquired Medical Greens, a provider of medical logistics services.

SK3 has a direct business, in which it buys and takes possession of excess electronic and computer inventory for resale (Direct Business). In addition, SK3 has a fulfillment partner business, in which SK3 facilitates the sale of merchandise of other retailers, cataloguers or manufacturers (Fulfillment Associates) through the Website (Fulfillment Business). For both the direct business and fulfillment business, SK3 has developed a consumer and a wholesaler sales channel.

SK3�� Direct Business involves buying and taking possession of inventory for resale. The Company offers moving picture experts group layer-3 audio (MP3) players and a frequency modulation (FM) transmitter accessory for MP3 players on the Website. SK3 seeks to become an online retailer offering non-b! randed electronic and computer merchandise for sale over the Internet. SK3�� Fulfillment Business sells merchandise of Fulfillment Associates through the Website. SK3 manages the orders collected for the Fulfillment Associates through the Website and forwards the orders on to the Fulfillment Associate, who then fills the order. The Fulfillment Associates perform essentially the same operations as a warehouse: order picking and shipping.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By James E. Brumley]

  Truth be told, it's not clear if SK3 Group Inc. (OTCMKTS:SKTO) is best described when compared to a name like Cerner Corporation (NASDAQ:CERN), or to a Gentiva Health Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTIV). The company's got elements of both major industries being represented by CERN and GTIV (home health care, and information technology), with the addition of another budding industry thrown into the mix. One thing IS clear though... SKTO shares have decidedly reversed a nasty downtrend, and may now be one of the market's best small cap healthcare speculative trades.

Top 5 Retail Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Yum! Brands Inc.(YUM)

YUM! Brands, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a quick service restaurant company in the United States and internationally. It develops, operates, franchises, and licenses a system of restaurants, which prepare, package, and sell various food items, as well as operates Chinese casual dining concept restaurants. The company?s restaurants specialize in chicken, pizza, and Mexican-style food categories. It operates approximately 37,000 restaurants in 110 countries and territories under the KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell brands, as well as approximately 450 casual dining concept restaurants in China. The company was formerly known as TRICON Global Restaurants, Inc. and changed its name to YUM! Brands, Inc. in May 2002. YUM! Brands, Inc. was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Darden’s shares dropped 0.6% to $54.01 today, even as McDonald’s (MCD) gained 0.3% to $96.54, Yum! Brands (YUM) rose 0.2% to $74.10 and Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) advanced 0.4% to $533.11.

• [By Michael Calia]

  Yum Brands Inc.(YUM) said its fourth-quarter profit slipped 4.7%, but the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut said it is making progress in its efforts to bolster flagging KFC sales in China. Shares climbed 5.2% to $69.60 premarket.

• [By Rick Aristotle Munarriz]

  Alamy Fried chicken and waffles is a staple menu item at countless soul food and comfort food restaurants, but that's not stopping Burger King (BKW) from trying to give the meal a fast-food spin. Burger King is testing a new sandwich in the Northeast that takes the breaded chicken patty used in its Classic Crispy Chicken Sandwich from its King Deals Value Menu and replaces the bun with a split waffle. Burger King's Chicken & Waffle Sandwich isn't as hearty as the meal that it's based on. It's selling for as little as $2.29. But the chain's latest attempt to turn heads with a unique menu item will at least attract curious nibblers if it does decide to broaden the offering across the country. Waffling About Burger King isn't the first popular chain to attempt to reinvent this classic dish. As Nation's Restaurant News points out, last summer, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen (PLKI) offered Chicken Waffle Tenders -- consisting of chicken tenders dipped in a vanilla maple-scented waffle batter, served with a honey maple dipping sauce. DineEquity's (DIN) IHOP did it three years ago by combining its chicken strips with Belgian waffle quarters. Yum! Brands (YUM) tried to breathe new life into its breakfast business last summer by testing a Waffle Taco -- an egg, sausage, and waffle breakfast sandwich. Even if it doesn't succeed -- and some of the early taste tests haven't been very flattering to the chain's new sandwich -- it's at least comforting to see that Burger King isn't just copying McDonald's (MCD) the way that it has for the past couple of years. Burger King followed McDonald's in offering fancy coffee drinks, fresh fruit smoothies, and popcorn chicken. It has gone on to roll out doppelgangers of the Egg McMuffin and McRib sandwiches. In November, it introduced the Big King, which any patron will quickly recognize as a body double to the Big Mac. Then again, it's not as if following McDonald's lead is such a clever idea right now. The world's largest re

• [By Katie Spence]

  As you can see, leisure and hospitality make up 34%. Most of those jobs are in restaurants and other food services -- like McDonald's (NYSE: MCD  ) , Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG  ) , Yum Brands' (NYSE: YUM  ) Taco Bell, and Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX  ) . Consequently, if the Fair Minimum Wage Act is passed, it'll have the biggest impact on fast-food and restaurant companies.

Best Asian Stocks To Own Right Now: AutoNation Inc (AN)

AutoNation, Inc. (AutoNation), incorporated on May 30, 1991, is an automotive retailer in the United States. As of December 31, 2011, the Company had three operating segments: Domestic, Import, and Premium Luxury. As of December 31, 2011, it owned and operated 258 new vehicle franchises from 215 stores located in the United States, predominantly in metropolitan markets in the Sunbelt region. Its stores sell 32 different brands of new vehicles. The core brands of vehicles that it sells, representing approximately 90% of the new vehicles that it sold during the year ended December 31, 2011, was manufactured by Ford, Toyota, Nissan, General Motors, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Chrysler. The Company offers a diversified range of automotive products and services, including new vehicles, used vehicles, parts and automotive repair and maintenance services , and automotive finance and insurance products, which includes the arranging of financing for vehicle purchases through third-party finance sources. The Company retailed approximately 400,000 new and used vehicles through its stores in 2011. It acquired one automotive retail franchise and related assets during 2011.

Domestic segment consists of retail automotive franchises that sell new vehicles manufactured by General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. Its Import segment is comprised of retail automotive franchises that sell new vehicles manufactured primarily by Toyota, Honda, and Nissan. Its Premium Luxury segment is consists of retail automotive franchises that sell new vehicles manufactured primarily by Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Lexus. The franchises in each segment also sells used vehicles, parts and automotive repair and maintenance services, and automotive finance and insurance products. For the year ended December 31, 2011, Domestic revenue represented 34% of total revenue, Import revenue represented 37% of total revenue, and Premium Luxury revenue represented 28% of total revenue. Corporate and other is consist of its other businesses, incl! uding collision centers, e-commerce activities, and an auction operation, each of which generates revenues, as well as unallocated corporate overhead expenses and retrospective commissions for certain financing and insurance transactions that it arranges under agreements with third parties.

The Company�� stores acquires vehicles for retail sale either directly from the applicable automotive manufacturer or distributor or through dealer trades with other stores of the same franchise. it acquires used vehicles from customer trade-ins, auctions, lease terminations, and other sources. It recondition used vehicles acquired for retail sale at its stores��service facilities and capitalize costs related thereto as used vehicle inventory. Through its VVOs, which are located on existing store facilities, it sells vehicles that it would have traditionally wholesaled with an average retail price lower than that of used vehicles it typically retail. Used vehicles that the Company do not sell at its stores or VVOs generally are sold at wholesale prices through auctions.

The Company offers a variety of automotive finance and insurance products to its customers. The Company arranges for its customers to finance vehicles through installment loans or leases with third-party lenders, including the vehicle manufacturers��and distributors��captive finance subsidiaries, in exchange for a commission payable to the Company. It also offers its customers various vehicle protection products, including extended service contracts, maintenance programs, guaranteed auto protection (GAP, this protection covers the shortfall between a customer�� loan balance and insurance payoff in the event of a casualty), tire and wheel protection, and theft protection products. The vehicle protection products that its stores offers to customers are underwritten and administered by independent third parties, including the vehicle manufacturers��and distributors��captive finance subsidiaries. The Company sells t! he produc! ts on a straight commission basis; however, it also participate in future underwriting profit for certain products pursuant to retrospective commission arrangements. Commissions that it receives from these third-party providers may be subject to chargeback, in full or in part, if products that it sells, such as extended service contracts, are cancelled. Its stores also provide a range of vehicle maintenance, repair, paint, and collision repair services, including warranty work that can be performed only at franchised dealerships and customer-pay service work. The Company has entered into framework agreements with vehicle manufacturers and distributors. It operates each of its new vehicle stores under a franchise agreement with a vehicle manufacturer or distributor.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By StreetAuthority]

  Gabriel Bouys, AFP/Getty ImagesBill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. $650 million is a lot of money -- even for Bill Gates. That's how much his investment firm has invested in what might be considered the best way to play China. It's not a software firm or even a computer hardware firm. It's mining giant Caterpillar (CAT). Gates started building a position in Caterpillar before the financial crisis, but he became a very aggressive buyer once the crisis hit and shares had fallen by half. Yet remarkably, Gates has kept on buying, even as shares steadily rebounded to previous peaks. But now that Caterpillar has come under pressure on concerns that China is slowing, is Gates locking in profits? No, he's been buying more, picking up another 500,000 shares in this year's second quarter. At current prices, his firm's stake of 10.76 million shares is worth a cool $650 million. The key question: Why does Gates continue to buy shares even after China's slowdown has signaled the potential end of a global commodities boom? After all, much of Caterpillar's growth in recent years has come from a strong surge in mining activity that uses the company's massive excavators. The simple answer is that Gates and his team of investment managers always focus on long-term winners and never buy or sell shares based on short-term economic shifts. We've seen him do it many times before. For example, even as Wall Street analysts focused on the near-term prospects for auto retailer AutoNation (AN), Gates saw an epic rebound coming, as I noted in this article. Shares of AutoNation have now risen 400 percent since early 2009. Caterpillar: The Long View

• [By tonyg34]

  In a recent interview right here on GuruFocus, Tom Gayner of Markel (MKL) had a few things to say about CarMax (KMX). This prompted me to give the company a closer look. What follows is a business analysis. We will save considerations of stock analysis, such as price, for a later discussion.
  
  I think that is a business that will continue to grow. I don't see any reason why you can't have a Carmax in a lot of towns way beyond what they're talking about right now. I think being the number one dealer, and having the number one market share in used car arena gives you great information on what transaction prices are. Then you work on the process to be as quick and as cost efficient in fixing the car and getting it sold, and have the confidence from customers when you offer warranties on the products. Those factors create a virtuous cycle. The more you do, the more you can do, the better the pricing is, the more the customers like you, the more your brand matters. The company will be around for a good long time. The management has done a very good job of creating the system and executing it.
  CarMax was formed as a unit of Circuit City in 1993 and was spun off in 2002. Used-car sales account for about 80% of revenue. Competitors include, but certainly are not limited to, AutoNation (AN) and America's Car-Mart (CRMT) as well as private party sellers.

• [By MONEYMORNING]

  From a high-tech standpoint, AutoNation Inc. (NYSE: AN) ranks as an intriguing hybrid play.

  To be sure, it is heavily rooted in the physical world. After all, the company operates some 267 auto dealerships around the United States, making it the industry's largest new-car retailer.

• [By Monica Wolfe]

  Over the past week Lampert reduced his stake in AutoNation (AN). The guru cut his holdings by -3.68% by selling a total of 1,131,093 shares. He sold these shares at an average price of $47.50, and the price is now trading up 4%. Lampert now holds on to 29,576,404 shares, representing 24.37% of the company�� shares outstanding.

Top 5 Retail Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Macy’s Inc (M)

Macy�s, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates stores and Internet Websites in the United States. Its retail stores and Internet Web sites sell a range of merchandise, including apparel and accessories for men, women, and children; cosmetics; home furnishings; and other consumer goods. The company also operates Bloomingdale�s Outlet stores that offer a range of apparel and accessories, including ready-to-wear, shoes, fashion accessories, jewelry, handbags, and intimate apparel products. As of January 28, 2012, it operated approximately 840 stores under the names of Macy�s and Bloomingdale�s; and 7 Bloomingdale�s Outlet stores, as well as macys.com and bloomingdales.com. The company was formerly known as Federated Department Stores, Inc. and changed its name to Macy�s, Inc. in June 2007. Macy�s, Inc. was founded in 1820 and is based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Douglas A. McIntyre]

  The double-digit drop in same-store sales has triggered a double-digit drop in revenue. J.C. Penney management has not developed the wisdom to shutter dozens of its underperforming stores, which outsiders find amazing. To lure shoppers who have departed for Macy’s (NYSE: M), Target (NYSE: TGT) and another dozen retailers, there is not a single thing J.C. Penney can do — unless it wants to give merchandise away.� Rarely discussed is that J.C. Penney’s drop in online sales is sharper than the one in bricks-and-mortar. That data is buried in J.C. Penney’s press releases and SEC filings. In a world in which Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) continues to grow at a monstrous pace, Internet sales have become a barometer of a retailer’s future. In this department, J.C. Penney has none.

• [By Natalie O'Reilly]

  Investors could not be more thrilled with Macy's (NYSE: M  ) fourth-quarter and fiscal-year 2013 performance. Macy's took to the runway with style and sophistication, as it far exceeded analysts' earnings-per-share estimates. According to Yahoo! Finance, Macy's actually secured its "fifth consecutive year of double digit earnings growth."

Top 5 Retail Stocks To Invest In Right Now: AutoCanada Inc (ACQ)

AutoCanada Inc. (AutoCanada) is a multi-location automobile dealership groups. As of December 31, 2011, the Company operated 24 franchised dealerships in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. During the year ended December 31, 2011, its dealerships sold approximately 28,000 vehicles and processed approximately 300,000 service and collision repair orders in its 333 service bays. As of December 31, 2011, it was authorized to sell through its dealerships the vehicle brands, which include Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Fiat, Hyundai, Nissan, Infiniti, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi and Subaru. In addition, it sells a range of used vehicles. In November 2011, the Company acquired assets of two dealerships. In January 2013, the Company purchased the assets of a Volkswagen dealership known as People's Automotive Ltd. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Greg Quinn]

  AutoCanada Inc. (ACQ), the country�� largest publicly traded chain of car dealerships, is using sales of trucks to Alberta oil workers to fund higher dividends and buy out competitors.