Retail Winners & Losers: Rite Aid, Lowe's

Rite Aid, Lowe's and Macy's are among the biggest movers in retail on Tuesday.

Author:: Jeanine Poggi
Publish date:: Sep 22, 2009 5:21 PM EDT

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) --

Rite Aid

(RAD) - Get Report

topped the New York Stock Exchange in the wrong way today -- as one of the day's biggest decliners.

While the overall retail market remained relatively flat, with the S&P Retail Index at 384.92, there were some big winners and losers in the sector.

Rite Aid, in particular, felt the squeeze, tanking 4% to $1.99 after a Raymond James analyst

downgraded the company to market perform from outperform

on a pessimistic outlook for the second quarter. The drugstore is set to release its quarterly results on Thursday.

Lowe's

(LOW) - Get Report

also tumbled 4% to $21.07 after the

home improvement retailer released a cautious outlook

. The company said it plans to slow store openings and forecasts earnings for the coming year between $1.24 and $1.34 a share.

Rival

Home Depot

(HD) - Get Report

was also off 2% to close at $27.62 on the news.

In the winners' circle,

Macy's

(M) - Get Report

received a boost after being upgraded

by Citigroup to buy from hold. Analyst Deborah Weinswig said the department store has top-line and margin potential, and is impressed with its localization initiative.

Macy's ended the day up 5.5% to close at $18.87.

Shares of

Buckle

(BKE) - Get Report

were also on the upswing after it issued a special one-time dividend of $1.80 a share, on top of the 20-cent regular dividend the company typically pays each quarter.

The denim retailer gained 5% to end the day at $30.47.

Other retailers on the rise included

Amazon.com

(AMZN) - Get Report

, which rose 3.5% to $93.75,

Zale

(ZLC)

, which climbed 5% to $7.44, and

Office Depot

(ODP) - Get Report

, which grew 4% to close at $6.40.

-- Reported by Jeanine Poggi in New York