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With the short holiday week and only three trading days since last week’s update, we will go directly to a new recommendation. Markets welcomed the nomination of Jerome Powell as head of the Fed for another term, believing that he will keep interest rates low through early next year. As for our stocks, Cloudflare (NET) had a down day yesterday but we have no change in recommendation.

Have a great Thanksgiving holiday.

Crista has several portfolio updates and changes today.

The overall market is still in fine shape, but there have been a growing number of yellow flags, including among growth stocks, which came under fire today. As a result, we are selling one position from the portfolio and downgrading another to Hold.

It’s been another constructive week for the market, though that’s not necessarily due to the major indexes, which are barely up (0.25% or so) since last Friday’s close.

As we enter the second quarter, emerging markets are on solid footing in a constructive uptrend as EEM remains just above both 50-day and 25-day moving averages. In light of this we are positive and increasing our allocation.

The S&P 500 was up 13% for the quarter, making it the best first quarter since 1998 and the best overall quarter since 2009. It’s impossible to predict short-term gyrations in the market, at this point, it looks like a slow slog higher for the market for the rest of the year. It is an ideal environment for dividend stocks and only once change to the portfolio as we are selling one position.

It’s been a volatile week for the market, with some churning seen earlier in the week, a huge up day after the Fed’s dovish stance, and then today’s big wave of selling on economic fears and a newly-inverted yield curve (as of this morning).

The major indexes have had a solid week thus far, with most major indexes up 1.5% to 2.5% after this morning’s modest jobs report bounce.

The tide is changing. The recent perception was that of sputtering economic growth in a market that was panicking about the possibility of a near-term recession. Many of our defensive positions have gone gangbusters in the past turbulent year but I’ll be watching the situation closely but for now I will bow to strong momentum.

One stock begins a run-up and moves from Buy to Strong Buy and two others continue to rise.

Two stocks in the portfolios have reported earnings and there is news on one other.

This stock reported great first-quarter results.

It’s been a mixed week for the market. On one hand, we like some of the support seen in the major indexes and some key leading stocks this week, especially given the numerous intraday dives that occurred.

If you could draw up a reaction to the selling of the past couple of weeks, the past few days would have been it, with the market basically levitating higher all week, including this morning’s pop. As we write, the S&P 500 is up 2.6% on the week, while the Nasdaq is up 3.5%.

We have the ideal environment for the relative performance of dividend stocks. You are in the right place at the right time. The portfolio has had another good week and one rating change moving a position back to Hold.

Remain bullish. The market continues to act well, and while the broad market has been futzing around for nearly a month, our market timing indicators are positive and most leading stocks are in good shape. Only change tonight is putting one position back on Buy.