Stocks were mostly lower on Thursday morning, with the sharpest declines in Technology and Communication Services. On the employment front, the Labor Department said that first-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell to 385,000 for the week ended May 29, down from 405,000 a week earlier and slightly below the Bloomberg consensus of 387,000. The Dow rose 0.2%, the S&P fell 0.2%, and the Nasdaq fell 0.8%. Crude oil fell slightly to $68 per barrel, while gold traded near $1871 per ounce.

The S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) haven't seen much follow-through over the last five days. The S&P Mid-Cap 400 and Russell 2000 (IWM) have made some headway, with the "400" approaching its all-time closing high (ATH) from May 7 and the small-caps nearing their ATH from March 16.

This edition features Ford's electric future; the funeral industry in Australia; Amazon's move to buy MGM; and notes from Toll Brothers, General Mills, and Intuit.

We continue to (mostly) ignore market sentiment as bullish extremes become even more extreme. Indeed, other than some mild pullbacks, we haven't seen anything close to real fear since the COVID-19 collapse in February and March of 2020.

Vickers Stock Research, a subsidiary of Argus Research Group, tracks and analyzes insider trading and institutional ownership trends. Form 13Fs are due 45 days after the end of calendar quarters, and are just now coming in from 1Q21. We like to review the 13Fs of the major activist investors, including Carl Icahn, Trian Fund Management, Jana Partners, and ValueAct Holdings, among others. Activist investing has evolved in recent years and is now less about generating a short-term return on an underpriced stock and more about achieving long-term returns through an active management/investor partnership. Here are some recent new purchases and key holdings of activist investors, according to Vickers.

As we discussed yesterday, there has been some clear weakness in market breadth over the past month, mostly seen in the Nasdaq and the Nasdaq 100 (NDX). This is certainly not surprising, as those indices bore the brunt of the selling over that same past month.

Volatility reigned last week, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average seeing four days with changes in excess of 350 points. Not surprisingly, the VIX Volatility Index logged some miles as well, starting the week at 17.34, hitting a mid-week high of 28.93, and ending the week back down at 18.81. When that type of wild day-to-day action occurs, finding solid ground in short-term indicators can be difficult. So at times like these, we favor a review of long-term gauges.

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.

Stocks were mixed on Thursday morning following news that the Biden administration would support intellectual property waivers on coronavirus vaccines. Pfizer and Moderna shares were down sharply, though JNJ was flat. On the employment front, the Labor Department said that first-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell to 498,000 for the week ended May 1, down from 590,000 a week earlier and below the Bloomberg consensus of 538,000. The Dow rose 0.4%, the S&P rose 0.1%, and the Nasdaq fell 0.3%. Crude oil fell 1% to $65 per barrel, while gold traded near $1815 per ounce.