The onset of the coronavirus in 2020 knocked the stock market into a bear market. Though stocks have recovered, the U.S. economy is about to slow down and COVID-19 cases are rising again as virus variants spread. Volatility, which has dropped from the highs of 2020, still has not returned to pre-COVID levels. Daily prices can swing wildly, as they did during two consecutive days in mid-July when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 1,000 points. Yet investors exit the stock market at their own peril, as long-term returns from equities consistently have outpaced long-term returns from other asset classes. Argus believes that Min Vol is an all-weather strategy that is timely in any investing climate and can deliver market-matching returns on an absolute basis and superior returns on a risk-adjusted basis over various time periods.

In a week that began with somber discussions of an overdue correction, stocks wobbled -- and then used "buy the dip" momentum to race to new all-time highs. Although stocks suffered a drubbing on Monday, with the benchmark S&P 500 down 1.6% for the session, they clawed back on Tuesday through Thursday and then staged a big-finish Friday.

Stocks rose on Tuesday morning, recouping some of Monday's sharp losses. IBM reported strong 2Q earnings and housing market data was mixed. The Commerce Department said that U.S. housing starts rose 6.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.643 million units in June, above the Reuters forecast of 1.590 million. However, building permits, a longer-range indicator, fell 5.1% to an annualized 1.598 million. The Dow rose 1.6%, the S&P 1.4%, and the Nasdaq 1.0%. Crude oil traded near $67 per barrel, while gold fell slightly to $1808 per ounce.

This pick list highlights constituents of the Morningstar US Mid Cap Index that we believe offer investors the best risk-adjusted return prospects. The market capitalization range for U.S. mid-caps typically falls between $1 billion and $8 billion and represents 20% of the total capitalization of the U.S. equity market.

In late May, we commented on a trend that was developing in the weekly insider-sentiment data from Vickers Stock Research. Specifically, we noted a seeming shift in the behavior of insiders at companies that list on the NYSE as compared to those that list on the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

The Fed Calms the Markets: Our Monthly Survey of the Economy, Interest Rates, and Markets

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.

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.

Last week, we talked about the relative-strength turn towards Technology stocks that started in the middle of May. It just happened to coincide with the decline in the long end of the Treasury yield curve to the downside. If a pop in rates hurts Tech stocks, then a retracement in rates should help the sector. The 10- and 30-year Treasury yields have fallen only two to three basis points over the past month, which is not all that much. But perhaps more importantly, they stopped going up.