Here's Why These Retail Stocks Jumped as Much as 8% Today

Here's Why These Retail Stocks Jumped as Much as 8% Today

It's Dec. 4, and shares of several big retailers are up strongly. As of 11:48 a.m. EST, shares of Macy's Inc. (NYSE: M), Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS), Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT), and Kohl's Corporation (NYSE: KSS) are up between 5.6% and 7.7%. This marks a continuation of a recent streak that has all four companies' stocks up by double digits since Thanksgiving.

A couple of things are helping drive these retail stocks higher today. To start, it's looking increasingly likely that Congress will be able to get a tax reform package to President Donald Trump and signed into law. Late Friday, the U.S. Senate passed a tax reform bill that, like the bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in November, would substantially lower corporate tax rates. Lower corporate income tax rates would be a substantial boost for U.S. retailers.

That's only part of the story, though. Over the past couple of months, the prospects for traditional retail have begun to look a little better, after the market had spent most of the past year predicting some sort of "retail apocalypse."

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Source: Fool.com