Stocks were mixed on Thursday morning amid surging coronavirus cases, as the U.S. pandemic death toll rose above 250,000. On the employment front, first-time claims for state unemployment benefits rose to 742,000 for the week ended November 14, up from 711,000 a week earlier and above the Bloomberg consensus forecast of 700,000. In other data, the National Association of Realtors said that U.S. existing home sales rose 4.3% in October to a seasonally adjusted 6.85 million units, up from 6.57 million in September and above the consensus forecast of 6.45 million. The Dow fell 0.3%, the S&P fell 0.1%, and the Nasdaq rose 0.5%. Crude oil traded near $41.50 per barrel, while gold fell $14 to $1860 per ounce.

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.

Investors hunting for stocks that reasonably balance long-term growth and value characteristics might want to look at companies in the Financial Services, Healthcare, Industrial and Technology sectors. These are a few of the industry groups that are currently selling for (price/earnings)/(growth+yield) ratios at or below the S&P 500's ratio of 2.0x. To generate these PEGY ratios, we use the P/E ratio for each sector based on forward 2021 earnings for the numerator. For the denominator, we average the growth rates for the past three years along with two years of forward estimates, in order to achieve a smoother, less-volatile earnings trend. We then add the current yield, to approximate total return. Premium-valued sectors with low growth rates include the Energy, Materials and Consumer Staples sectors. Our over-weight sectors include Healthcare, Consumer Discretionary Communication Services, Utilities and Information Technology. Our under-weight sectors include Real Estate and Energy.

Stocks fell sharply on Friday morning, led by selloffs in the Technology and Consumer Discretionary sectors. Apple shares fell 5%, despite above-consensus earnings, on concerns about weak iPhone sales and declining revenue in China. The company also declined to provide guidance for the current fiscal first quarter. Amazon also posted strong 3Q results but provided disappointing 4Q earnings guidance, sending the shares down about 4%. The Dow fell 1.5%, the S&P 1.8%, and the Nasdaq 2.7%. Crude oil fell to $35.50 per barrel, while gold rose $12 to $1880 per ounce.

There are many ways to check the breadth, or underlying strength, of major stock indices. The easiest is to look at the advance-decline line of an index in relation to price. Another way is to look at the McClellan Oscillator and the McClellan Summation Index of each index. A third path is to look at the Buying Percent Index (BPI) of each index and see what percent of issues are on point & figure buy signals.