The back-to-school shopping season has just ended. In a blink, we'll be shopping for the holidays. That's should add up to a lot of shopping - but we'll see how secure consumers are feeling about their finances. Shopping patterns offer great insight into the state of consumers, who are the backbone of the U.S. economy (accounting for two-thirds of GDP). It's still a little early for some of the bigger industry groups to put out their holiday estimates, but we do have some data points to consider. Overall, the National Retail Federation expects retail sales to increase 2.5%-3.5% for the entire year. Stastista expects a 4% increase in holiday sales for 2024 compared to 2023. eMarketer forecasts a healthy 4.8% rise in holiday sales compared to last year. Salesforce predicts a 2% increase in 2024 holiday sales, which is still growing but at a slower pace than the 3% logged last year. In sum, consumer spending growth could be between 2%-5% this holiday period. Meanwhile, Forbes notes the following particulars about this upcoming holiday season: 1) it is shortened, with only 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas; 2) past presidential election years have shown a dip in spending leading up to and following the election; and 3) Walmart and Amazon account for roughly 38% of total retail growth, presenting a challenge for other retailers. The following is a list of BUY-rated stocks in Argus' Universe of Coverage. These represent companies that are leaders in the retail industry. Some of these stocks are also in various Argus portfolios.

eBay Inc. provides online platforms, tools, and services to help individuals and merchants conduct online and mobile commerce in the United States and internationally. eBay completed the spinoff of its PayPal electronic payments service in July 2015, the sale of its StubHub business in February 2020, and the sale of its Classifieds business in June 2021.

U.S. stocks headed higher on Thursday following positive economic data. Retail sales rose 1%, above expectations for a 0.4% gain. Weekly jobless claims fell again this week to 227,000. The S&P 500 was up 1.6%, the Dow gained 1.4% and the Nasdaq rose 2.3%.

EBay operates one of the largest e-commerce marketplaces in the world, with $73 billion in 2023 gross merchandise volume, or GMV, rendering the firm a top 10 global e-commerce company. The company generates revenue from listing fees, advertising, revenue-sharing arrangements with service providers, and managed payments, with its platform connecting more than 130 million buyers and roughly 20 million sellers across almost 190 global markets at the end of 2023. EBay generates just north of 50% of its GMV in international markets, with a large presence in the UK, Germany, and Australia.