March Retail Sales Exceed Forecasts, Analyst Notes Best-Performing Sectors

March retail sales exceeded expectations despite weather delays and a late Easter, J.P. Morgan analyst Christopher Horvers wrote in a Wednesday research note.

What Happened: March retail sales rose 4.6% year-over-year, accelerating from 3.5% in February and slightly exceeding Bloomberg's forecast of 1.3% sequential growth.

Core retail sales were up 4.2%, nearly flat from the prior month.

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Best-Performing Sectors: Discretionary categories like electronics, restaurants, apparel, and home furnishings saw strong year-over-year growth in March, likely due to “tariff pull-forward” ahead of price hikes.

The analyst also noted that sporting goods, grocery, general merchandise, and home improvement weakened.

In April, five out of ten categories will face easier year-over-year comparisons, including auto parts (-400 bps) and nonstore (-395 bps).

Conversely, electronics (+485 bps), apparel (+325 bps), and others will have tougher comparisons.

O'Reilly Automotive Inc ORLY will likely report first-quarter same-store sales growth of 5.7%, well above the consensus estimate of 2.9%, based on sequential trends. This performance aligns with buy-side expectations, according to internal analysis.

Tractor Supply Co. TSCO appears poised to underperform expectations for first-quarter, with estimated same-store sales growth of 0.3% versus Street forecasts of 1.0%–1.1%.

This figure, however, is slightly ahead of more bearish buy-side projections, which anticipated a 1%–2% decline, noted the analyst.

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