Consumer Company Shares Up On Holiday Season Optimism - Consumer Roundup

Shares of retailers and other consumer-services companies rose slightly amid optimism about the holiday-shopping season. "Increasingly, the orthodox narrative about retail -- that pure e-commerce is destined for full-spectrum dominance -- is being challenged," said Tim Shirata, executive vice president at money manager Guild Investments, in a note to clients. "Rather than heading towards a pure e-commerce world, we see that the world's biggest retailers are converging on strategies that in various ways marry online and offline experiences for their customers." Wal-mart recently said it was bulking up its ecommerce team in preparation for the holiday season, while Amazon.com is changing the way that Whole Foods Market stores handle merchandise to become more in line with traditional supermarkets. Shares of L'Oreal rose after the death of the heiress who long controlled the cosmetics company, Lilianne Bettencourt, opened up the possibility that Swiss consumer-products giant Nestle would adjust its stake, which it had pledged not to do until six months after Ms. Bettencourt's death.

-Rob Curran, rob.curran@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 22, 2017 16:38 ET (20:38 GMT)