holiday mall traffic appeared to still be down from 2019 but samestore sales were flat to or above 2019 levels given strong conversion rates according to analyst lorraine hutchinson at bofa securities strong conversion rates indicate that the ratio of buyers to browsers has increased hutchinsons outlook comes after she hosted the annual holiday mall tour at the queens center in new york where she met with a number of store managers he said that most retailers which have eased store capacity constraints experienced a healthy amount of volume during the black friday week stores have either pulled back on depth of discounts or maintained prior years promotional cadence consistent with previous expectations hutchinson wrote in a note to clients on wednesday stores were well stocked and managers noted inventory levels are adequate ahead of the december holiday season the spdr sp retail etf xrt slumped 15 in afternoon trading toward a fiveweek low and has now dropped 112 since the nov 16 record close of 10416 the etf has shed 43 over the past three months but has soared 438 year to date while the sp 500 spx has gained 13 the past three months and advanced 220 this year