by Greg Guenthner
Daily Reckoning
2016 was supposed to be the year we celebrated a new retail utopia…
Anything you want at the touch of a button. Groceries delivered to you on-demand. Armies of drones dropping off packages on your stoop moments after you click “buy”. A golden age of ultra-easy consumerism was upon us!
The media has been trumpeting the tune that big, bad Amazon is destroying brick and mortar retailers left and right. Malls are dead. Macy’s is going the way of Sears and J.C. Penney. And there’s nothing we can do to stop it…
But the retail revolution will have to wait, according to the all-knowing entity we call the stock market. Amazon shares have hit a serious rough patch this year. And all those busted-up retailers you hated back in 2015 are posting some impressive gains.