Department stores whose share prices had already declined recently, due to low expectations going into the last two months of 2015, fell further. Shares of Macy's Inc (>> Macy's, Inc.) were down 2.7 percent at $38.90 on Monday afternoon. Nordstrom Inc (>> Nordstrom, Inc.) shares were down 2.2 percent at $56.33, Kohl's Corp (>> Kohl's Corporation) stock was down 3 percent at $46.64 and Wal-Mart Stores Inc (>> Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) shares were down 1.4 percent at $59.04.

For the year, Macy's stock has now plummeted 41 percent while Nordstrom is down 24 percent, reflecting a consumer shift away from discretionary items like designer-label clothes and cosmetics and toward online spending and merchandise including smartphones, televisions and home goods.

More than 80 percent of the stocks in the S&P retail index <.SPXRT> were down. Gainers included Best Buy (>> Best Buy Co Inc), which was up 0.8 percent at $31.72, and Priceline Group (>> Priceline Group Inc), up 0.6 percent at $1,252.13.

Even online shopping heavyweight Amazon.com Inc (>> Amazon.com, Inc.), which should benefit from the Internet shopping trend, was down 0.4 percent at $670.38.

"In the short term, players are saying 'Hey, this is not what I positioned myself for,'" said Frank Davis, director of sales and trading at LEK Securities in New York. "They thought maybe we'd get a bit of a pop, but that hasn't happened."

Data from analytics firm RetailNext showed retail sales for Thursday and Friday fell 1.5 percent on flat customer traffic, while average spending per shopper dropped 1.4 percent. Online sales were up by double digits.

Deutsche Bank said that 46 percent of stores it polled were busy on Friday and Saturday, down from 60 percent last year and the lowest result of its survey since 2009.

The website of discount retailer Target Corp (>> Target Corporation) went down due to heavy traffic on Cyber Monday and the company's stock was down 1 percent at $72.71.

As much as 20 percent of holiday shopping was expected to be done over the Thanksgiving weekend this year, analysts said. But the four days are not considered a strong indicator for the entire season.

Since 2008, early sales estimates following Black Friday and Cyber Monday have had little or no bearing on retail stock performance for the holiday quarter, according to a report by LPL Financial.

The short-term performance of stocks in the week after Thanksgiving has also been similarly inconsistent.

(Editing by Matthew Lewis)

By Noel Randewich