Stocks kept the momentum going in April, and are now up almost 12%, including dividends, in the year-to-date. Our analysts have been progressing through earnings season, and have come across many stocks in coverage that have approached target prices. We set target prices through our valuation framework, which includes analysis of historical multiples, peer multiples, future dividends, and cash flows. After adjusting the models for the latest earnings and dividend information -- most of which has been good -- here are some of the stocks on which we have raised target prices over the past month. All stocks are rated BUY at Argus.

Stocks rose modestly on Thursday morning, but gave up strong early gains amid a range of first-quarter earnings reports and new GDP and employment data. Investors also weighed President Biden's ambitious plans for new spending on families and education. The Commerce Department said that the U.S. economy expanded at a 6.4% annualized rate in the first quarter, above the Reuters consensus forecast of 6.1% and up from 4.3% growth in the fourth quarter. The Dow rose 0.1%, the S&P 0.3%, and the Nasdaq 0.1%. Crude oil rose 1.5% to $65 per barrel, while gold traded near $1768 per ounce.

First-Quarter Review and Full-Year 2021 Outlook

Sustainable Impact Investing is gaining traction with the global investment community. In January 2020, BlackRock CEO Lawrence Fink, who oversees approximately $9 trillion in assets, announced that his firm would be investing in companies that are making progress on sustainability. He doubled down in his January 2021 letter, calling on company managements to disclose their plans for making their businesses "compatible with a net-zero economy" by 2050. As assets have flowed in over the past 40 years, Sustainable Impact Investing has evolved. The discipline, originally known as Socially Responsible Investing, focused at first on excluding companies that conducted business in South Africa, or participated in industries such as tobacco, alcohol, and firearms. But the performance of these initial strategies lagged, and the approach has been modified. Now, instead of merely identifying industries to avoid, the discipline promotes "sustainable" business practices across all industries that can have an "impact" on global issues such as the climate, hunger, poverty, disease, shelter, and workers' rights.

Stocks rose on Friday morning amid strong manufacturing and housing market data. The rally followed a Thursday afternoon selloff prompted by the Biden administration's plan for increased capital gains taxes on high earners with incomes above $1 million. IHS Markit said that its manufacturing purchasing managers' index rose to 60.6 in the first half of April, up from a final reading of 59.1 in March and slightly above the consensus forecast. On the housing front, the Commerce Department said that U.S. new home sales rose 20.7% to an annualized 1.021 million units in March, above the consensus of 886,000. The Dow rose 0.5%, the S&P 0.9%, and the Nasdaq 1.3%. Crude oil traded near $62 per barrel, while gold fell $6 to $1776 per ounce.

This pick list highlights constituents of the Morningstar US Large Cap Index that we believe offer investors the best risk-adjusted return prospects. Stocks of large-cap companies where neither growth nor value characteristics predominate. Stocks in the top 70% of the capitalization of the U.S. equity market are defined as large cap.

This edition features optimism for Arkema; Seven & I's food-service strategy; the Fed's next moves for interest rates; and notes from Bank of America, FedEx, and American Express.

The United States economy is full of innovation. It has to be. Manufacturing industries that dominated the economy decades ago - textiles, televisions, even automobiles, to a large degree - have moved overseas, where costs are lower. Yet the U.S. economy, prior to the pandemic, had expanded to record levels. And now, the U.S. Healthcare industry is mobilizing to improve COVID-19 testing, treatments and vaccines. Consider that U.S. GDP was approximately $1 trillion in 1930 but nearly $22 trillion at the end of 2019. That's growth of 22-times. Meanwhile, the U.S. population has grown less than 3-times during that time span, to 320 million from 120 million. The delta between GDP growth and population growth has been driven in large part by innovation. In addition, the value of listed corporations on U.S. stock exchanges at the end of 2020 was approximately $32 trillion, representing 41% of global equity market capitalization, while U.S. GDP represented only 25% of global GDP. The current low level of interest rates (the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield is 1.1%) and the relatively high level of the dollar both attest to the confidence that global investors have in the innovative U.S. economy.