There’s a phrase usually not associated with Amazon (AMZN).  While CEO, Chairman, and Founder Jeff Bezos was hob-nobbing with A-List celebrities last night at the company’s post-Prime Day concert, Amazon’s stock has been more of an ‘average Joe’ this year.  With a YTD total return of 21.6%, AMZN is still modestly outperforming the S&P 500, but relative to other companies in the S&P 500 Retailing industry, its performance has been pretty much right in the middle of the pack.  What’s even more surprising about performance among stocks in the S&P 500 Retailing industry is how many traditional brick and mortar retailers are outperforming AMZN this year.  Target (TGT) — buoyed by strong earnings this morning — is at the top of the list and up more than double than AMZN on a year-to-date basis.

AMZN may be trailing some traditional retailers so far this year, but there have still been plenty of losers in the group.  Both Macy’s (M) and Nordstrom (JWN) are down over 40%.  The fact that more than 100 percentage points separate the biggest winner and loser in terms of performance this year shows just how bifurcated the sector has become. And this doesn’t even cover the horrific performance of mall REITs that provide space for brick and mortar retail.  Start a two-week free trial to one of Bespoke’s premium equity market research services.

So far this week, second-quarter results for major US retailers have been generally positive. Yesterday saw solid results from the likes of TJX (TJX) and Home Depot (HD) and this morning Lowe’s (LOW) and Target (TGT) are looking at their largest gap up in response to earnings since at least 2001.

Despite this strong price action from retailers, an adjacent group, shopping center REITs, has continued to suffer. If you want to see some truly awful long-term price charts, these have you covered.

Below we show the charts of a handful of REITs with a particular focus on shopping centers. Each one is in a long-term downtrend over the past five years and is currently around the lows of this timeframe. The worst of these has been CBL & Associates (CBL) which has fallen 96% over the past five years! Meanwhile, Washington Prime (WPG) and Pennsylvania REIT (PEI) have both lost over 75% of their value. While performance is still not good, Simon Property Group (SPG) has held up relatively well compared to its peers, only declining 13.4%. The rest have fallen around 50%.

Given the stocks’ decimated price over the past few years, dividend yields of this group have become astronomical.  CBL & Associates (CBL), Pennsylvania REIT (PEI), Washington Prime (WPG) and Macerich (MAC) each have double-digit dividend yields. CBL and WPG’s yields are actually now over 30%!  Unfortunately, none of these yields are likely to remain high as future dividend cuts are all but certain.  Start a two-week free trial to one of Bespoke’s premium equity market research services.

Declines yesterday left the major US index ETFs all below their 50-day moving averages.  As shown in our Trend Analyzer snapshot below, about half of them are oversold while the other half are in neutral territory. With equity futures pointed higher this morning, we’ll see if any of these ETFs can regain their 50-day moving averages by the end of the trading day.

For the Nasdaq (QQQ), yesterday’s move lower marked yet another failed attempt to break and hold above its 50-DMA. Since reaching a low on August 5th, the ETF has made multiple attempts to retake the 50-DMA without any considerable push above these levels.   With QQQ trading up 1% ahead of today’s open, we’ll get yet another test of the 50-day shortly.  Bulls will be looking for resistance at the 50-day to finally break.  Start a two-week free trial to Bespoke Institutional to access our Chart Scanner and much more.