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Our inboxes are full of wild and outlandish conspiracies, promises, and secrets but they won’t help investors be more successful.

Now that was an interesting week, as countless sectors imploded (banks/REITs/airlines/energy) while at the same time money rushed into mega-cap technology. By week’s end the S&P 500 had risen 1.43%, the Dow had fallen 0.15%, and the Nasdaq way outperformed, having gained 4.41%.

Sprout Social beat on the top and bottom lines after the close yesterday. Revenue rose 31% to $75.2 million (beat by $130K) while EPS of $0.06 improved from a loss of -$0.03 in the year-ago quarter and beat by $0.07.

It’s been another up week for the market, though as of this morning, the gains have been relatively muted, generally up 1% or less.


Even so, that keeps all of the primary evidence intact: The intermediate-term (and longer-term) trends of the indexes, along with most stocks and sectors, are pointed up, and the action of most leading stocks (especially on the growth side of things) has been excellent, with many names kiting higher. Thus, we remain bullish and are holding most of our strong, profitable stocks.

Rocket Lab (RKLB) is gunning for SpaceX’s launch monopoly with the planned deployment of its Neutron rocket next year. Do they have what it takes to compete?

There’s a lot more to “buying low” than just identifying falling prices.

Our overall investment barometer moved a bit more bearish this month, but our select group of advisors maintains a cautious but bullish stance, as you’ll see in our Market Views section.

While people in the U.S. are familiar with Aflac, Inc.’s (AFL, NYSE) memorable (if not annoying) “duck” mascot, most Americans would likely be surprised to know that the company actually does most of its business in Japan. Aflac is the world’s largest underwriter of supplemental cancer insurance, with the largest...

“Insperity, Inc. (NSP)—In 2008 CEO-cofounder Paul Sarvadi’s 20-year-old Administaff, Inc. encountered serious growing pains. It provided staff outsourcing to small- and medium-sized companies like itself. With the economy and hiring beset by recession, revenues stopped growing at $1.6 billion and its earnings and stock price nose-dived. But Sarvadi had...

I’m recommending the sale of Applied Materials (AMAT – yield 1.1%). The stock is up about 35% since joining the Growth Portfolio in August 2016.

Two stocks move from Strong Buy to Hold and there is bullish price action another.

Tonight, we’re selling one stock that broke down today, and booking partial profits in another. We’re also putting one stock on Hold because it’s been correcting sharply, though it’s still in an overall uptrend.

After two-plus months where sellers really couldn’t make a dent in the market, last week was a change, with the major indexes down and, more important to us, many growth stocks decisively cracked near- to intermediate-term support. On the flip side, the vast majority of the top-down evidence remains positive, some growth names are holding their own and a bunch of industry, energy, transport and other cyclical names are still acting fine. Put it together and we think it makes sense to pull in your horns a bit for now, but we’re also not selling wholesale, as the odds continue to strongly favor the market (and many leaders) working its way higher once this selling squall passes. We’re moving our Market Monitor down to a level 6.

Interestingly, despite the market’s hiccup, it wasn’t hard to find a bunch of solid charts (and some solid setups) in a variety of sectors, as you’ll see in this week’s list. Our Top Pick is a cookie-cutter retailer that looks to have finally emerged from a long bottoming effort.

Today’s Revolutionary Stock is Stratasys (SSYS), one of the two leaders of the 3-D printing business.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! After the Fed for the first time since 2018 raised benchmark rates, stocks surged yesterday. The question remains whether the Fed can get a handle on inflation without tipping the economy into a recession. Rock-bottom Chinese stocks also got a lift yesterday as a Chinese regulatory agency indicated its support of U.S.-listed Chinese stocks. Emerging markets and fintech remain out of favor but we go there today for a Warren Buffett-backed, aggressive idea that is a play on both of these themes.

Macy’s (M) – With a capable new CEO since February 2018, Macy’s is aggressively overhauling its store base, cost structure and e-commerce strategy to adapt to the secular shift away from mall-based stores. Macy’s acceleration of its overhaul shows considerable promise.

In last week’s column on the twin topics of The Individual vs. the State and Inequality, I mentioned that beginning in 2017, the SEC will require public companies to disclose the ratio of their CEO’s annual compensation and that of the median employee—and I asked for your opinions on that.

I’m not an energy industry wonk, but the 2017 crude oil export situation is so vastly different than it has been for most of our adult lifetimes that it’s worth paying renewed and inquisitive attention to energy stocks.