Maybe you intend to catch-up on certain things over the holidays. That's what defensive sectors appear to be doing in the fourth quarter. At the nine-month mark, income-oriented, defensive, and/or cyclical sectors were deeply lagging -- and they won't catch the leaders in 2020. But in the past two months, formerly unloved sectors have meaningfully closed the gap.

Stocks were mixed on Wednesday morning after reaching record levels on Tuesday. On the employment front, first-time claims for state unemployment benefits rose to 778,000 for the week ended November 21, up from 748,000 a week earlier and above the Bloomberg consensus forecast of 730,000. Core capital goods orders excluding aircraft rose 0.7% in October, down from 1.9% in September but above the consensus forecast of 0.5% growth. The Dow fell 0.6%, the S&P fell 0.3%, and the Nasdaq rose 0.1%. Crude oil traded near $45 per barrel, while gold rose $5 to $1809 per ounce.

Argus has published its latest Portfolio Selector, which features its popular Focus List. Each month, Director of Research Jim Kelleher, CFA, surveys the team of Argus Research industry analysts for their timeliest recommendations out of the company's fundamental universe of approximately 500 stocks. The Focus List typically includes 30 stocks: turnover is high, as Director of Research Kelleher typically adds three or four new stocks per month. Below are the latest additions, all of which are rated BUY at Argus.

Core prices are starting to increase a bit, though we don't think the U.S. Federal Reserve is too worried. Currently, the central bank is backstopping mortgage markets, money-market mutual funds, small businesses, mid-sized businesses, corporate debt, and some state and local governments. The total bill? The central bank is likely to (more than) double the $4.1 trillion in assets that were on its balance sheet at year-end 2019 (the current total is $7.1 trillion). Meanwhile, most inflation measures remain below the Fed's target of 2.0%, though on average they are up month-over-month. We track 14 inflation measures on a monthly basis. On average, they are indicating that prices are rising at a 1.04% rate, ahead of last month's reading, which was 0.95%. Looking at core inflation (which we obtain by averaging Core CPI, market-based PCE Ex-Food & Energy and the 10-year TIPs Break-even Interest Rate), our reading is 1.6%, lower month-to-month. With this inflation backdrop, we expect the Fed will focus on other issues and keep short-term rates close to zero until at least 2022.

This edition features digital ad spending outlook; pandemic's impact on payments industry; chipmakers; and notes from Boeing, Amazon, and Curaleaf.

Today, we take another look at crude oil, perhaps the most-interesting (and possibly volatile) market right now -- this despite the stock market's rapid recovery and the precious metals collapse.

The S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400 and Russell 2000 (IWM) hit all-time highs (ATHs) last week, while the Nasdaq Composite and the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) lagged behind. Strange times indeed. The Energy (XLE) sector was the market leader last week, soaring 17%. Year-to-date, the XLE is still at the bottom of the sector heap, down 41% -- so there is still a lot of work to do. In second place last week, Financials (XLF) jumped 8.3%. The XLF is still down 10.4% for the year and remains the second-worst YTD performer.

The 3Q20 EPS season is mostly in the record books, with retailers the last group to report. The results were not pretty, but were better than 2Q20. Through mid-November, Refinitiv reported that S&P 500 earnings declined in 3Q at a 7.4% rate -- a vast improvement from the prior quarter's 30.5% decline. Excluding the Energy sector, earnings declined at a 3.2% rate. Of the 462 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings to date for 20Q3, 84% have reported earnings above analyst expectations. This compares to a long-term average of 65% and prior four-quarter average of 73%. Our analysts are always looking for companies that raise their outlooks during earnings season. Management's ability to "raise guidance" can often be a catalyst to strong returns in the quarters ahead. There were not many in this most-recent period. Here are 12 BUY-rated companies in Argus Coverage for which management has raised guidance or increased its outlook during the recent EPS reporting season.

This edition features Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine; new coverage of Roku; an Australian home improvement retailer; and notes from Tencent, Palantir, and Aurora Cannabis

The Portfolio Selector features the Argus Focus List, a group of 30 "best idea" stocks generated and regularly updated by Argus' analysts and investment policy committee. It also includes the director of research’s monthly investment strategy column, stock recommendations and sector picks, economic forecasts, and an asset allocation model. This month, the Focus List additions are Clorox Co. (CLX); Zoetis Inc (ZTS); Square Inc (SQ); Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (WSM) and the Focus List deletions are CBOE Global Markets Inc. (CBOE); D.R. Horton Inc. (DHI); Incyte Corp. (INCY); Pepsico Inc. (PEP).