Online sales on Black Friday jumped 23.6 percent from last year, reaching $6.22 billion.
That's a new record according to Adobe Analytics.
It was a strong start to the busiest shopping season of the year.
But despite the increase in shopping activity, the boost in sales doesn't always translate to stock performance, at least in the short term.
Since 2010, retail, has underperformed the S&P 500 in the period between Black Friday and the end of the year - as measured by the SPDR Retail ETF - the XRT.
Among the largest retail names by market cap, Target and Walmart manage to post positive average returns, but still lag the S&P - trading positively just half the time.
Amazon and Best Buy have notched negative average returns in that period.
Best Buy typically loses more than 3 percent, trading negatively 75 percent of the time.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 gains an average of 2.3 percent, a positive trade 75 percent of the time.
