Retail Winners: Lululemon, Amazon

Retailer are rallying following better-than-expected initial jobless claims and Bernanke's testimony on interest rates.

Author:: Jeanine Poggi
Publish date:: Mar 25, 2010 12:47 PM EDT

NEW YORK (

) -- Retailers are in the green as initial jobless claims improve and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony on interest rates is spurring the markets.

The S&P Retail Index is climbing 1.8% to 454.08 in afternoon trading, led up by big gainers like

Lululemon Athletica

(LULU) - Get Report

and

Amazon

(AMZN) - Get Report

Lululemon topped the New York Stock Exchange's list of biggest advancers after it reported

fourth-quarter profit that nearly tripled and a 2010 forecast that topped Wall Street's expectations

As a result, shares of Lululemon are surging 11.7% to $40.26 in afternoon trading.

Best Buy

(BBY) - Get Report

is also moving higher following its

better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings report and an optimistic 2010 outlook

During the quarter, the electronics retailer received a boost from sales of notebook computers, flat-panel televisions and mobile phones.

Shares of Best Buy are rising 5.1% to $43.27 and are leading up other electronics retailers. Amazon is jumping 6% to $135.79 while

HHGregg

(HGG)

is soaring 7.1% to $26.89.

Fred's

(FRED)

is increasing 3.1% to $11.70, as its fourth-quarter profit more than doubled. During the quarter, Fred'sprofit reached $5.7 million, or 15 cents a share. Fred's revenue rose 1% to $473.1 million, while same-store sales slipped 0.9%.

eBay

(EBAY) - Get Report

, meanwhile, is up 3% to $27.77 after it was upgraded to outperform by Credit Suisse, citing its PayPal business. "We have increased our long-run profit margin assumptions for PayPal, which we now expect to reach 26.5% by 2015 vs. 18% in 2010," analyst Spencer Wang wrote in a note.

Wang also upped his price target on the stock to $32 from $25.