So I was looking back at how Halloween spending actually played out and stumbled on some interesting patterns with Halloween stocks that traders were watching back in 2024. The numbers were wild - people were planning to drop over $11 billion on the holiday, which meant certain retailers were basically printing money during that season.

Mondelez was one of the obvious plays since candy spending alone hit $3.5 billion. Like, think about it - when Halloween rolls around, everyone's buying chocolate and snacks. Same logic applies to Home Depot, which saw decoration budgets hit $3.8 billion. Discount chains like Dollar General were also positioned perfectly since about 37% of shoppers were hitting up those stores specifically for Halloween gear.

What caught my attention though was how much online shopping factored in. Around 33% of consumers were buying Halloween stuff through Amazon and similar platforms. That's why people were eyeing retail ETFs back then - VanEck's RTH and the SPDR retail ETF (XRT) tracked that whole sector. Plus the social media angle made sense too since people search Pinterest and YouTube constantly for costume inspo.

Looking back, those Halloween stocks and retail ETFs basically captured this predictable seasonal shift. The online retail ETF (ONLN) was another one getting attention since the trend toward e-commerce shopping was pretty obvious. Kind of interesting how seasonal plays like this work out when you actually dig into the spending data.