by Ian Cooper

Heading into the holidays, we knew sales would be explosive.

As we noted just weeks ago, according to Deloitte, 2023 holiday sales could rise about 3.5% to 4.6%, resulting in sales of about $1.54 trillion to $1.56 trillion. Meanwhile, holiday e-commerce sales could see a year-over-year boost. According to Reuters, “The sales are also expected to grow at a much faster pace and hit $221.8 billion for the period between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31.

However, it appears online sales could do much better.

Black Friday online sales, for example, were up 7.5% year over year to about $10 billion. Also, as noted by MarketWatch.com, “Adobe Analytics said it expects Cyber Monday to remain the season’s and year’s biggest online shopping day at $12 billion, up 6.1% year-on-year.”

That being said, it’s no surprise that funds such as the Amplify Online Retail ETF (IBUY) ran from a November 1 low of $40.68 to $48.03 so far. Or that the ProShares Online Retail ETF (ONLN) ran from a low of about $29.14 to $32.47 so far.

While that’s great news on the long side of the holiday ETF trade, we have to remember that once the holidays are over, many will pull back on profit taking. And while you can always short, or buy a put option on the IBUY and ONLN ETFs, you can also pick up inverse retail ETFs, which benefit from the expected pullback.

Look at the Direxion Daily AMZN Bear 1x Shares (AMZD), for example.

With an expense ratio of 1.07%, the ETF pushes higher as AMZN pushes lower. After all, in many years, once the holiday season is over, the ecommerce stock tends to pullback in the first few weeks of a new year.

Or, we can look at the Decline of the Retail Store ETF (EMTY). With an expense ratio of 0.65%, the ETF pushes higher as retailer stocks drop. It has holdings in food retail, consumer staples, apparel, automotive, home improvement, and computer and electronics retail. With the exception of 2021, the EMTY ETF typically pops at the start of the new year.