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Christmas is round the corner and investors were hopping for a Black Friday that would bail out the retailers.

As predicted, the biggest winners came to be discounters and the department stores. Investors preferred to move in with Wal Mart( WMT), Target(TGT), Macy’s(M), Nordstrom(JWN), while carefully ignoring specialty stores such as Abercrombie & Fitch( ANF), The Gap (GPS) and similar other specialty retailers.

As per the statistics given by National Federation of Retailers, the market saw a large turnout of 195 million people, up by 13% as compared to the same period in 2008. However, the spending were about 30% less as compared to last year.

In totality, the retailers went down and the investors received Cyber Monday discounts on big retail stocks.

The sales were driven purely by deep discounts and this worked well for Target and Wal-Mart. Consumers did change focus from necessities to accessories and apparel and this indeed is considered a positive indication.

Macy’s stock is a good buy as it has better inventory management in place and is one of the trendsetters in clothing. As compared to its competitors such as Sears(SHLD) and J.C. Penney, the stock is trading at a much cheaper price.

The fourth quarter results for Macy’s are expected to be better and this will further make it an attractive stock. The earnings per share for Macy’s are better than the market predictions.

Sears will fare well too, as it has done better when compared to its performance in the last year.

The economic recovery can be felt due to the upward trend of the stock market and also for the better sales of the luxury brands during the weekend.

The best stock would be Nordstrom. It offered minimum discounts, yet it achieved better volume. The Price Earning ratio is 15 and has attractive return on equity of over 25%.

The only unattractive buy would be Saks(SKS) which is expected to be in red until 2011. The current years sale were down by 15%

Specialty stores are showing slow turnover growth, however The Gap fared better as compared to Abercrombie & Fitch. Hot Topic (HOTT) too reported a 8% lesser sales.

The markets are still largely driven by discounts and this trend was seen on Internet marketing sites as well.