The countdown for Black Friday has begun, and retailers have well placed their arsenal to fire on all cylinders — both brick-and-mortar stores as well as online. The day following Thanksgiving Day is the busiest shopping day of the entire year and so retailers are leaving no stone unturned to make the most it.

Over the last decade, Black Friday retailers have been racing to open earlier and earlier. This year, as in recent years past, many big box stores will kick off Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving Day.

Retailers have some very good reasons to cheer. A rebounding economy, falling unemployment rate and increasing consumer sentiment all point to solid sales this year. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary October consumer sentiment reading came in at 93.1, up from the previous month’s figure of 90. The preliminary reading was also higher than the consensus estimate of 91.2.

On the other hand, data compiled by eMarketer suggests a 5.7% jump in holiday sales (November and December) to $885.7 billion against 3.2% growth projected earlier. Retail e-commerce holiday season sales are anticipated to increase 13.9%, and represent approximately 9% of total sales this season (or $79.4 billion), up from 8.3% last year.

Data compiled by the nation’s largest retail trade group, National Retail Federation (NRF), projects a 3.7% sales jump for the period to $630.5 billion (excluding autos, gas and restaurant sales), shy of 4.1% growth registered last year but better than the 10-year average sales increase of 2.5%. Online sales for the season are expected to increase 6–8% to approximately $105 billion.

There is no doubt that competition among retailers during the holiday season is going to be intense, and aggressive pricing may hurt margins to some extent. However, at the end of the day consumers will be the real gainers. Here, we present five retail stocks that could enrich your Black Friday shopping list.

5 Prominent Picks

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