Back in Striking Distance of 20K

It only took one solid day for the market to get back to making new highs and nearing new milestones, which goes to show just how much stocks had been meandering for the past several sessions. The Dow is back to within 100 points of 20K after a 0.57% advance on Tuesday to 19912.7. The S&P increased 0.66% to 2280.1 and the NASDAQ moved higher 0.86% to nearly 5601; both of these indices reached all-time highs.

President Trump has really hit the ground running in his first week in the Oval Office. Yesterday his focus was on trade, and today he signed some executive actions on pipelines and met with the heads of GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler. But apart from Washington, investors were digesting this solid earnings season and some good manufacturing data. A few of the editors are back to calling for Dow 20K very soon…with Dave Bartosiak expecting it tomorrow!

The market’s rally opened up a barrage of activity in the portfolios today, including a trio of double-digit winners for RTA and a double-digit performance for Surprise Trader as well. The brand new TAZR Trader added its first three picks on Tuesday, while  Home Run Investor , Momentum Trader and Stocks Under $ 10 all added. Finally, Zacks Short List had two swaps. Let’s get right to it:

Three Profitable Trims for RTA

→ The market’s strong session offered the Reitmeister Trading Alert a “glorious chance” to bank some profits for three positions heading into unpredictable earnings reports. Steve sold shares of MKS Instruments (MKSI) for a return of 40% (leaving a 6.2% allocation), Cirrus Logic (CRUS) for a profit of 24% (leaving a 6% allocation) and Berry Plastics (BERY) for a gain of 20.4% (leaving a 6.1% allocation). Just to reiterate, the editor is keeping most shares of these positions in the portfolio. Read the full write-up for the specifics.

→ The semiconductor market continues to be strong, and one of the big beneficiaries is Broadcom (AVGO). Shares of the company soared on Tuesday, prompting Eric to sell the stock from Surprise Trader shortly before its limit price. The sell brought a healthy profit of 19.4% in less than two months.

Today’s Portfolio Highlights:

• The first three picks of our new TAZR Trader were released this morning as promised. Kevin has found three Zacks Rank #2s (Buys) with compelling technical situations. Here’s a quick synopsis:

— There are plenty of ideas in the hot semiconductor space, but the editor chose Applied Materials (AMAT) for it’s strong sales and earnings growth estimates combined with an attractive 13.5X multiple and a great-looking chart. AMAT was added with a 10% allocation.

— RealPage (RP) is a SaaS (software-as-a-service) company that provides on-demand property management solutions. It’s earnings growth of 112% last year was nice, but Kevin was most impressed with its projection for 70.75% more EPS growth this year with sales growth of 14.7%. RP was added at a pullback with a 10% allocation.

— Financials soared after the election, and Primerica (PRI) was one of the rockets with an expected 7.5% sales advance and 13.3% EPS growth this year. The editor likes that PRI is the least exposed to Washington shenanigans with deregulation and to the climb in interest rates. He only has a 7% allocation in this name but is willing to add more down the line.

Get a lot more info on these first picks in the complete commentary. And make sure to read the TAZR Trader guide to learn all about our newest service.

• Get ready for three new buys in Stocks Under $ 10 over the next few days as Brian looks to get the portfolio fully invested with 15 names. For today, the editor added Intevax (IVAC), which supplies hard disk drive space. Not everything is stored in the cloud these days; devices still need operating systems stored on them, which makes this a very strong industry. So strong, in fact, that this is the third stock from the Electronics – Manufacturing Machinery space in the portfolio after EMKR and UCTT. Like the other two, rising earnings estimates have lifted IVAC to a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). Read more about this new addition in the complete commentary, and get ready for more buys on Friday and Monday.

• In the wake of President Trump’s executive action on the Dakota Access Pipeline this morning, Dave sees a great opportunity for Momentum Trader by picking up Tenaris (TS). This tubular steel product company is based in Luxembourg, but has manufacturing facilities here in the U.S. The editor thinks this stock may benefit from increased demand for US manufactured steel. He added TS to the portfolio with a 12.5% allocation. Learn more about this new addition in the complete commentary, including a look at its chart.

• Only two names were swapped out of Zacks Short List this week. The portfolio short covered UAA (+7.3%) and CF. It replaced these names by adding Murphy Oil (MUR) and Weyerhaeuser (WY). Learn more about this emotion-free portfolio that takes advantage of falling and volatile markets by reading the Short List Trader Guide.

• The second largest domain registrar in the world is now…Tucows (TCX). The company recently spent $ 83.5 million to acquire the domain name registrar eNom, which effectively doubled the amount of TCX’s domains under management to 29 million and pushed total active resellers to 40,000. The acquisition is expected to be immediately accretive to earnings. The stock jumped by $ 10 on the news, but Dave feels that there’s plenty more room to run given that it just doubled the size of its business. Therefore, he bought it on Tuesday for Home Run Investor . Read more in the full write-up.

Have a Good Night,
Jim Giaquinto

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