Best Retail Stock to Buy Before the Holidays

SBH could reach another fresh annual high before the end of the year

Another specialty retailer to keep an eye on during the upcoming holiday season is Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SBH), which made the top spot on Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White's list of the 25 best retail stocks to own before Black Friday. Below, we will dive into why history says its a good time to hop onto SBH, and how the beauty supply chain has been faring on the charts.

Sally Beauty stock suffered a steady downtrend between January and mid-August, but have since found support at the 120-day moving average, a trendline that acted as a ceiling of resistance for the shares during the aforementioned downfall. What's more, the stock surged nearly 26% in intraday trading yesterday, after the company reported a third-quarter beat-and-raise. Regardless, SBH is down 1.9% at $22.16, at last check.

Per White, Sally Beauty has been the best retail stocks to own from November through the end of the year, looking at data from the past 10 years. Specifically, SBH has averaged a two-month gain of 10.13%, with an impressive 90% positive return rate. Another lift of this magnitude would put the shares near $24.40 -- fresh annual high territory.

Wrapping up, short interest on SBH fell 3.3% during the most recent reporting period, and now represents a whopping 22.4% of the stock's total available float. At the retailer's average daily trading volume, it would take shorts a whopping three weeks to buy back their bearish bets.