Throughout the past year, stocks in the health care business have drawn a lot of attention from investors and analysts. That includes stocks in the Pharmacy/Drugstore industry; these were names, like Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA)and CVS Corporation (CVS) that worked actively in the early stages of the crisis to provide a critical piece of the […]
Read MoreEnergy prices – particularly in crude oil – were among some of the most dramatically impacted components of the global economy at the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. As businesses were shuttered, and shelter-in-place orders ground economic activity everywhere to a halt, demand for crude cratered; both West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude […]
Read MoreThe Consumer Discretionary sector cuts a wide swath across the economic landscape of the United States. It’s easy to think about the sector as the place you’ll find retail stocks, but the truth is that there are a lot of other businesses within the sector that are much more than just the department stores and […]
Read MoreAfter seeing some increasing choppiness in the market last week, the S&P 500 and the Dow pushed to a new set of highs at the beginning of the week. Not surprisingly, the Tech sector has been leading the market higher; as measured by the S&P 500 Technology Sector SPDR (XLK), the sector is up a […]
Read MoreAs a value investor, the search for stocks trading at useful values gets more difficult the longer bullish conditions extend themselves.The market appears to have broken out of doldrums that had some people starting to wonder if all of the good news was already baked into stock prices. That’s generally good news for stocks you’re […]
Read MoreOver the past year, it’s been interesting to see not only how corporations have evolved to survive and get by, but also how consumer behaviors and trends have adjusted as well. Broad-based shutdowns that shuttered businesses all over the U.S. at the beginning of the pandemic sent people home for an unknown future. That move […]
Read MoreSometimes there are really remarkable events that diverge from the normally expected narrative that plays out in the markets. “Expected” events are what we usually expect to see talking heads discussing and analyzing – economic reports, consumer activity, monetary policy, the way the latest political intrigue will be felt, and for the past year, the […]
Read MoreThis week I’ve turned my focus primarily back on the Food Products industry in the Consumer Staples sector. It’s an area of the market that doesn’t get much buzz from market media types because it isn’t very sexy – but it is one of very few segments of the market that has seen consumer-driven improvements […]
Read MoreUncertain economic conditions are often a good time to think about stocks that most people tend to overlook because they’re “boring.” These are stocks that also tend to operate in counter-cyclical fashion. They often make up segments of the economy that you and I rely on every day, but that don’t generate the same kind […]
Read MoreOver the last few weeks, the market has started to get choppier, which generally means that it’s harder to determine whether investors are bullish or bearish. That’s a sign of uncertainty about market direction, and I’ve noticed that an increasing number of analysts have started to talk or write about something I’ve believed for some […]
Read MoreMoving deeper into 2021, more and more investors and analysts continue to attempt to look past the pandemic-driven pressures that have weighed on public activities and on the economy for the past year. One-year anniversaries are being marked, with the apparent assumption that with vaccines being administered on an accelerated basis and being made available […]
Read MoreIt is interesting to observe the distinction in performance between different sectors and industries, and their possible correlation to broader economic activity. One of the places where I think that can be seen more easily is in evaluating large-cap versus small-cap stocks. If you look at most of the biggest and most recognizable names in […]
Read MoreOne of the open questions of the past year has been about the point in time where questions, discussions and commentary about the economy and the world don’t continue to revolve around the pandemic. That question remains unanswered, but as an analyst, part of my job is to sift through the relentless, constant stream of […]
Read MoreOver the past year, a lot of the various sectors in the market have rebounded from their coronavirus-driven bear market lows to not only drive back to their pre-pandemic highs, but also to establish new highs well above those previous levels. On the back of expectations that as the year progresses, health crisis pressures will […]
Read MoreThe “herd mentality” can be a funny thing to think about in societal terms – but it’s a real thing in the stock market. The sheer number of publicly traded stocks on U.S. exchanges alone creates a wave of market data that no single person can handle alone, and that’s a big reason why it […]
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