B.I.G. Tips – Death by Amazon – 5/21/25
In this note we update performance of our “Death By Amazon” and “Amazon Survivors” indices. Our “Death By Amazon” index has underperformed pretty dramatically since 2023 after broadly keeping up with the market as a whole over the prior 10 years. As for our “Amazon Survivors” index, it’s lagged the market somewhat so far this year but not dramatically.
Both of these indices outperformed dramatically in 2020 and 2021 but then gave all that boom back. It’s notable that these indices track stocks that are heavily exposed to tariffs given the general prevalence of Chinese-sourced goods in the consumer basket. That said, the impact isn’t uniform, with everything from used auto dealers to groceries seeing much less exposure to imports from China than the rest of the basket.
Bespoke publishes the “Death By Amazon” and “Amazon Survivors” Indices as a way to track performance of the companies most affected by the rise of AMZN. Neither index represents investment returns of an actual investment portfolio. When initially constructed, companies in the “Death By Amazon” index had to be direct retailers with a limited online presence (or core business based on physical retailing locations), a member of either the Retail industry of the S&P 1500 Index or a member of the S&P Retail Select Index, and rely on third party brands. We view these attributes as the best expression of AMZN’s threat to traditional retail. The “Amazon Survivors” index is designed to track the performance of companies which have some sort of defense against Amazon, selling goods not suited to mass e-commerce, operating e-commerce platforms of their own, or selling their own brands consumers will focus on instead of who is selling them. The indices are equally weighted, rebalanced monthly, and presented in total return terms.
To see how the two indices have been performing lately and view the full list of stocks that make up the indices, please read our newest report on the subject available to Bespoke Premium and Bespoke Institutional members.
To unlock our “Death By Amazon” and “Amazon Survivors” indices, login or start a two-week free trial to either Bespoke Premium or Bespoke Institutional.
