Retail stocks have taken a hammering lately.  It’s fairly obvious to everyone that Amazon gets to play by its own set of rules, meager to non-existent profit margins while brick and mortar stores like the Gap, Nordstrom, and Target have to meet shareholder’s earnings expectations and pay hefty dividends to boot.

Recent carnage has brought out some buyers:

TGT Edwards Robert L Dir 11/20/15 Purchase 10,000 $71.10 $711.0K 4 n/a 10,000 $711.0K 11,560 641.0

GPS Peck Arthur L CEO 11/23/15 Purchase 37,150 $26.99 $1.0M 4 n/a 37,150 $1.0M 166,410 28.7%

JWN Satre Philip G

Dir 11/23/15 Purchase 17,600 $56.89 $1.0M 4 n/a 17,600 $1.0M 42,361 71.1%

We prefer to own Dollar General DG which is largely immune to Amazon as Dollar General’s customers are more likely to have food stamps than Amazon Prime memberships. None the less this kind of insider buying in high quality dividend payers is very enticing to nibble into but I can’t anticipate anything that will change the dynamic.  Amazon gets a free pass and everyone else has to pay.