Annie Erner · Wealth & Investing Expert

Despite many predictions to the contrary, the demise of the consumer sector did not occur in 2009. We were pleased to see our investment thesis unfold as we had laid out early in 2009. With valuations depressed, we saw great opportunities for the good operators who quickly adjusted their inventories and kept costs under control, thus allowing their margins to expand. While we had high hopes, who would have thought this would have been the best year of the decade for consumer and retail stocks, as measured by the S&P Retail Index and the Morgan Stanley Retail Index?
Retail stocks led the do…