The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.

Small- and mid-cap stocks (SMID) have underperformed large-caps over the past 12 months, but may be in a better position to generate market-beating returns going forward. SMID companies tend to focus on domestic markets, so their businesses could be less disrupted by the fallout from global events. As well, the prices of SMID stocks generally are lower than the prices of large-caps. As well, there are long stretches in the record books when SMID stocks have outperformed large-caps. That said, SMID stocks can be risky. The standard deviation for monthly returns was 5.7% for SMID stocks over a 2003-2021 test period, versus 4.3% for large-caps. Still, despite the risks, diversified investors look to have exposure to small- and mid-caps based on the long-term performance record.

U.S. markets were mixed on Friday morning, but are still on track for gains for the week. On the earnings front, FedEx (FDX) rose 7% on an earnings beat, while Nike (NKE) was down about 7% on a weak outlook. The Dow was down 0.5%, the S&P 500 fell 0.1% and the Nasdaq gained less than 0.1%. Crude oil traded above $80 per barrel, while gold fell $16 to $2169 per ounce.

The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.

Stocks were mixed on Tuesday morning as investors await results from the Federal Reserve policy meeting. On the housing front, in February, housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.52 million. This up from the revised 1.37 million in January and above expectations of 1.43 million. Building permits issued were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.52 million, up from January's revised 1.49 million. The Dow rose 0.6%, the S&P 500 was nearly flat and the Nasdaq lost 0.3%. Crude oil traded above $83 per barrel, while gold fell $7 to $2157 per ounce.

Stocks pulled back on Friday morning as investors digested inflation data released this week and ahead of the Fed's policy decision next week. The Labor Department reported that U.S. import prices rose 0.3% in February, matching expectations and down from a 0.8% increase in January. Export prices rose 0.8% after advancing 0.9% in January. Prices for fuel imports advanced 1.8%, while nonfuel imports rose 0.2%. Meanwhile, manufacturing continued to decline. The Empire State Manufacturing Index fell to -20.9 in March from -2.4 in February and below expectations. New orders declined significantly, and employment and hours worked also fell. Input prices softened moderately, while output prices held steady. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment for the first weeks of March edged down to 76.5 from 76.9 in February. The S&P 500 fell 0.6%, the Dow was down 0.4% and the Nasdaq lost 0.9%. Crude oil traded just above $81 per barrel and gold was down $2 to $2165 per ounce.

We are raising our long-term technical outlook to Bullish and most likely will raise the intermediate-term outlook to bullish if we ever get a pullback. With the benefit of hindsight, both timeframes should have been changed to bullish either in the middle of 2023 or late 2023. Yet for the most part, the daily commentary in parts of 2023 and 2024 conveyed bull-market action in market breadth, as well as breadth and price thrusts typically seen in early bull markets. Things got tricky in October 2023, when the S&P 500 broke many key averages as well as its bull-market trendline off the October 2022 lows. In addition, market breadth fell back to bear-market territory. At the same time, the entire yield curve was in a strong uptrend, hitting and exceeding 5%.

Monday Tee Up: Is Inflation Still Trending Down?

The stock market finally saw a little reversion to the mean on Friday, as the most-loved stock and industry was whacked. Nvidia (NVDA) fell 5.5%, its worst day since May 2023. This followed huge advances of 95% since January 3 and 130% since October 2023. Over six days (ending March 7), the shares rose more than 19%. At Friday's intraday high, NVDA hit $974 and then was slammed down to $865 by 1:35 pm.

The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.

Stocks rose Thursday, erasing earlier losses. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq reached record highs. Fed Chair Powell said that he expects interest rates to come down this year. The European Central Bank left interest rates unchanged, as expected. The bank revised its inflation projections down for 2024, mainly as a result of energy prices, and expects to hit the target of 2% inflation by the end of 2025. The S&P 500 finished at 5157, the Nasdaq at 16,273, while the closed at 38,791. Crude oil traded just below $79 per barrel while gold was up $7 to $2166 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.

Our analysis of recent data leads us to conclude that the U.S. economy is healthy and consumers are still leading the way. Based on the second update to 4Q GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, personal consumption expenditures (PCE) contributed 2.0 points of the 3.2% increase in GDP, which was revised down from 3.3% in the first estimate. Within PCE, the huge services category was a standout, contributing 1.28 points to GDP. PCE represented 69%, or $15.6 trillion of the fourth quarter's $22.7 trillion GDP. Services represented $10.1 trillion or 45% of total GDP. Our 2024 GDP forecast is for 2.0% growth. We expect 1Q to be up 2.3%. We expect 2Q to be the weakest of 2024, with 1.3% growth ramping to 1.8% in 3Q and 2.3% in 4Q. In February, economists in the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Survey of Professional Forecasters expected GDP to rise 2.4% in 2024, with 1Q up 2.1%, 2Q and 3Q each up 1.5%, and 4Q up 1.7%. On March 1, the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model estimated 1Q24 growth of 2.1%. Our 2024 forecast assumes inflation continues to fall and the Fed has completed its rate-hike campaign, with monetary easing likely to begin in the middle of the year. In recent data, we have seen that January's job market was much stronger than we expected, while post-holiday retail sales were weaker than we anticipated. Walmart said, in its 4Q earnings call, that its customers are resilient but looking for value. WMT is seeing less inflation and hopefully setting a trend of passing the savings on to customers. WMT has reduced the prices of key items. While economic growth may be uneven in 2024 and into 2025, we believe the Fed has the ability to bolster growth if it falters badly. Our early forecast is for GDP to grow 2.0% in 2025. We expect the Fed will be close to meeting its dual mandate, with inflation near 2% and unemployment at approximately 4.1%.

March 4, 2024 Monday Tee Up: Jobs, Powell, COST