How do Investors Assess the Relative Performance of Retailers and Manufacturers in the US and Europe? (Revision 1 )

In this paper the authors review the relative performance of retailers and manufacturers on stock markets in the US, UK, and France over the last two decades. The 2 major conclusions are that ,using Total Shareholder Return (TSR) as an evaluation criterion, retailers outperformed manufacturers over this time period in all three countries; and that this out-performance of retailer stocks can be fully explained by the different risk exposure of a retailer portfolio when compared with a manufacturer portfolio and not by the power gain of retailers.