
Current Market Outlook
After weeks of banging on resistance, the major indexes lurched above some key levels last week, and many individual stocks did the same. To be fair, “breakouts” in indexes are notoriously unreliable, which is why we put more emphasis on the overall trend (choppy, but still positive) and the action of leading stocks (improving, though earnings season continues to have its say). Thus, while last week wasn’t a major buy signal, the weight of the evidence tells us to push our Market Monitor up a notch into bullish territory and continue to look for new leadership to emerge in the weeks ahead.
This week’s list has a wide variety of stocks, but for our Top Pick, we’re going with the mega-cap stock that just gapped up on earnings—
Amazon’s (AMZN) surge last week pushed it out of a 15-month base as investors see huge potential for the firm’s cloud computing division.
| Stock Name | Price | Buy Range | Loss Limit |
|---|
| Taser (TASR) | 0.00 | 28-30 | 25-26 |
| Men’s Wearhouse (MW) | 0.00 | 55-57 | 50-51 |
| Ligand Pharmaceuticals (LGND) | 267.14 | 82-86 | 76-78 |
| HD Supply Holdings, Inc. (HDS) | 0.00 | 32-34 | 30-30.5 |
| Hasbro (HAS) | 0.00 | 69-72 | 65-66 |
| GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPH) | 174.52 | 115-120 | 103-105 |
| Fortinet Inc. (FTNT) | 137.53 | 37-39 | 34.5-35 |
| Axalta Coating (AXTA) | 0.00 | 29.5-31 | 27-28.5 |
| Amazon.com (AMZN) | 2.00 | 430-450 | 410-415 |
| Akamai Technologies (AKAM) | 0.00 | 73.5-76.5 | 68-69 |