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  • This fund beats the S&P 500 by using just 75 of its components. Here’s how it works.

    This fund beats the S&P 500 by using just 75 of its components. Here’s how it works.

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    What worked well during the years-long bull market through 2021 — a focus on growth, regardless of price — has ground to a halt this year. The rebirth of the value style of investing — and modest valuations overall — has taken hold.

    The approach taken by the Invesco S&P 500 GARP ETF has paid off through both bull and bear markets.

    Let’s begin with a 10-year chart comparing total returns with dividends reinvested for the Invesco S&P 500 GARP ETF
    SPGP,
    +0.67%

    and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust
    SPY,
    +0.78%
    ,
    which tracks the benchmark S&P 500:


    FactSet

    So far this year, SPGP is down 12%, while SPY is down 16%. But the long-term chart shows significant and consistent outperformance for SPGP, even during the bull market.

    The S&P 500 GARP Index

    GARP stands for “growth at a reasonable price.” SPGP tracks the S&P 500 GARP Index, which is reconstituted and rebalanced twice a year, on the third Fridays of June and December. The next change occurs Dec. 16.

    S&P Dow Jones Indices assigns a growth score to each component of the S&P 500 by averaging the three-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for earnings and sales per share.

    The top 150 components of the S&P 500 by growth score are eligible for inclusion in the GARP index. Those 150 are ranked by “quality/value composite score,” which is the average of these three ratios:

    • Financial leverage — total debt to book value.

    • Return on equity — trailing 12 months’ earnings per share divided by book value per share.

    • Earnings-to-price — 12 months’ earnings per share divided by the share price.

    The top 75 of the 150 by QV rankings are then included in the GARP index and weighted by the growth score, with portfolio weightings ranging from 0.5% to 5%.

    There is a weighting limitation of 40% to any one of the 11 S&P sectors.

    Addressing concentration risk

    The benchmark S&P 500 Index
    SPX,
    +0.75%

    is weighted by market capitalization, which means it is more heavily concentrated than you might expect — success is rewarded, with rising stocks more heavily weighted over time.

    That can backfire during a bear market, with Amazon.com Inc.
    AMZN,
    +2.14%

    down 47% and Tesla Inc.
    TSLA,
    -0.34%

    down 51% this year, to name two prominent examples.

    Looking at the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust
    SPY,
    +0.78%
    ,
    which is the first and largest exchange traded fund and tracks the benchmark index by holding all of its components, six companies (Apple Inc.
    AAPL,
    +1.21%
    ,
    Microsoft Corp.
    MSFT,
    +1.24%
    ,
    Amazon, both common share classes of Alphabet Inc.
    GOOGL,
    -1.30%

     
    GOOG,
    -1.26%

    and Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
    BRK.B,
    +0.06%

    ) make up 19.2% of the portfolio.

    That percentage has come down this year, but a lot of risk remains concentrated in a handful of companies. (Apple alone makes up 6.4% of the SPY portfolio. Tesla is now the ninth-largest holding, making up 1.4% of the portfolio.)

    One way to address high concentration in an index fund is to use an equal-weighted approach, which Mark Hulbert recently discussed.

    For the Invesco S&P 500 GARP ETF, the underlying index’s selection methodology has resulted in much less portfolio concentration than we see in SPY, with the top five holdings making up 10.9% of the portfolio.

    Here are the 10 largest holdings of SPGP:

    Company

    Ticker

    Share of portfolio

    Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

    REGN,
    +0.15%
    2.49%

    Cigna Corporation

    CI,
    +0.39%
    2.26%

    Everest Re Group, Ltd.

    RE,
    +0.24%
    2.21%

    Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated

    VRTX,
    +1.18%
    1.98%

    D.R. Horton, Inc.

    DHI,
    -0.39%
    1.97%

    Expeditors International of Washington, Inc.

    EXPD,
    +0.23%
    1.96%

    Incyte Corporation

    INCY,
    +0.10%
    1.92%

    Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

    GS,
    -0.51%
    1.83%

    Ebay Inc.

    EBAY,
    +1.67%
    1.81%

    Pfizer Inc.

    PFE,
    +3.07%
    1.73%

    Source: FactSet

    Click on the tickers for more information about any company, ETF or index in this article.

    You should also read Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information for free on the MarketWatch quote page.

    Don’t miss: 10 Dividend Aristocrat stocks expected by analysts to rise up to 54% in 2023

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  • UK Regulator Opens Cloud Gaming, Browsers Probe After Reports of Apple, Alphabet Duopoly

    UK Regulator Opens Cloud Gaming, Browsers Probe After Reports of Apple, Alphabet Duopoly

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    By Kyle Morris

    The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority has launched an investigation into cloud gaming and mobile browsers after an earlier report that Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc. have an effective duopoly on mobile ecosystems.

    The regulator said the duopoly allows them to exercise a stranglehold over operating systems, app stores and web browsers on mobile devices.

    Write to Kyle Morris at kyle.morris@dowjones.com

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  • Amazon CEO says more layoffs are coming in 2023

    Amazon CEO says more layoffs are coming in 2023

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    Amazon.com Inc. plans more layoffs, but employees will have to wait until 2023 to see if their jobs are affected.

    Chief Executive Andy Jassy said Thursday that while Amazon
    AMZN,
    -2.34%

    already confirmed that it was eliminating jobs in its devices and books businesses, an unknown number of layoffs impacting other teams are still to follow.

    See more: Amazon confirms layoffs, becoming latest tech powerhouse to slash roles

    “Our annual planning process extends into the new year, which means there will be more role reductions as leaders continue to make adjustments,” he said in a blog post on the company’s corporate site. “Those decisions will be shared with impacted employees and organizations early in 2023.”

    While Jassy doesn’t know “exactly how many other roles will be impacted,” he does know “that there will be reductions in our Stores and PXT organizations.” The company already announced a “voluntary reduction offer for some employees” working in PXT, or People Experience and Technology Solutions.

    The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Amazon could end up slashing 10,000 jobs.

    Jassy took over as Amazon’s CEO in July 2021 and said Thursday that “without a doubt,” the move to cut staff is “the most difficult decision we’ve made” since he’s been in the role.

    “It’s not lost on me or any of the leaders who make these decisions that these aren’t just roles we’re eliminating, but rather, people with emotions, ambitions and responsibilities whose lives will be impacted,” Jassy said.

    He added that Amazon “has weathered uncertainty and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so.” Jassy emphasized that Amazon will continue to plug away on more established areas like stores, advertising and cloud computing, as well as newer initiatives like Prime Video, the Alexa voice assistant and healthcare.

    Amazon joins other technology companies including Meta Platforms Inc.
    META,
    -1.57%
    ,
    Snap Inc.
    SNAP,
    -1.36%
    ,
    Shopify Inc.
    SHOP,
    -2.05%

    and Twitter in recently eliminating jobs. An activist investor earlier this week urged Alphabet Inc.
    GOOG,
    -0.49%

    GOOGL,
    -0.50%

    to cut positions as well.

    See more: Here are the companies in the layoffs spotlight

    Shares of Amazon were up 0.3% in after-hours trading Thursday after declining 2.3% in the regular session.

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  • Apple and Google stocks just had their worst week in more than two years

    Apple and Google stocks just had their worst week in more than two years

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    Shares of Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc. both suffered their largest weekly declines since the beginning days of the pandemic this week, as Big Tech companies continued to draw closer scrutiny from Wall Street.

    Apple’s stock
    AAPL,
    -0.19%

    finished down 11.2% on the week, its worst weekly performance since the week that ended March 20, 2020, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The stock declined 17.5% during that early-pandemic stretch.

    Shares of Apple fell during all five sessions this week.

    Shares in Google parent Alphabet
    GOOG,
    +3.84%

    GOOGL,
    +3.78%

    declined 10.1% during the week, their worst one-day percentage drop since that same March 20, 2020 week, when they fell 12.03%. The stock’s biggest weekly tumble in more than two years came even as Alphabet snapped a four-session losing streak in Friday trading.

    While Apple’s stock has fared better than that of Alphabet and other Big Tech peers, the company faces potential pandemic-related challenges owing to new COVID-19 setbacks at manufacturer Foxconn’s major facility. In addition, the realities of the current economic climate may be catching up to Apple, as Bloomberg News reported Thursday that the company had paused hiring in several areas unrelated to research and development.

    See more: Apple reportedly pauses hiring for many roles, joining Amazon in belt-tightening

    Though there didn’t seem to be any major news developments pegged to Alphabet specifically in the past week, investors are putting more pressure on big internet companies, according to Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik. He recently conducted a Big Tech “autopsy” of results from Alphabet, Amazon.com Inc.
    AMZN,
    +1.88%
    ,
    and Meta Platforms Inc.
    META,
    +2.11%
    ,
    concluding that “perfection is required from here” for the three tech giants since Wall Street has less patience for weak performance in any one of their many business areas.

    Read: Amazon closes below $1 trillion valuation for the first time since 2020

    All three names suffered negative stock reactions in the wake of their latest earnings reports, which indicated challenges in the ad market due to economic pressures. At Alphabet specifically, “Search was more or less in-line with the buy-side bogey and the Cloud beat, but disappointing YouTube results combined with margin contraction drove a ~10% fall after-hours,” Shmulik wrote.

    Alphabet’s stock has declined 40% so far in 2022, while Apple’s is off 22% over the same span. The S&P 500
    SPX,
    +1.36%

    is down 21% on the year while the Dow Jones Industrial Average
    DJIA,
    +1.26%

    is off 11%.

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  • Why the Dow is having a killer month as it heads for best October ever

    Why the Dow is having a killer month as it heads for best October ever

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    The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been criticized by some market watchers for being a poor barometer of equity-market performance given its relatively small sample size of just 30 stocks.

    But this quality, along with the paucity of megacap technology names, has helped shepherd the index toward what’s expected to be its biggest October gain in its 126-year history.

    With a month-to-date gain of 14.40% through Friday, the Dow
    DJIA,
    +2.59%

    is on track for its best monthly performance since January 1976, when it rose 14.41%, according to Dow Jones Market Data. To clinch its best October ever, it only needs to hang on to a month-to-date gain of 10.65% by the time the U.S. market closes on Monday.

    The Dow is still in a bear market, but is now down less than 10% for the year to date. That compares, however, with year-to-date losses of 18.2% for the S&P 500
    SPX,
    +2.46%

    and 29% for the Nasdaq Composite
    COMP,
    -8.39%
    .

    Read: What the Dow’s stellar October and Big Tech’s ugly rout say about the stock market right now

    What exactly has made the Dow’s October performance so stellar?

     The blue-chip gauge is packed with energy and industrials stocks, which have been among the best performing sectors for the stock market since the start of the year, noted Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth Management. 

    These stocks have performed particularly well since the start of the latest quarterly earnings season, while megacap technology names like Meta Platforms Inc.
    META,
    +1.29%
    ,
    Amazon.com Inc.
    AMZN,
    -6.80%

    and Alphabet Inc.
    GOOG,
    +4.30%

    have sputtered after delivering results and guidance that disappointed Wall Street this week.

    “It’s very tech-light, and it’s very heavy in energy and industrials, and those have been the winners,” Hogan said. “The Dow just has more of the winners embedded in it and that has been the secret to its success.”

    See: Live markets coverage

    The Dow is on track to log its highest close in at least two months on Friday as it outperforms both the S&P 500
    SPX,
    +2.46%

    and Nasdaq Composite
    COMP,
    -8.39%
    .
    Furthermore, it’s on track to climb for a sixth straight session, what would be its longest winning streak since May 27, according to DJMD. 

    Adding to the list of notable factoids, the average is also on track to log a fourth straight weekly gain, which would cement its longest winning streak since Nov. 5, 2021, when the index rose for five straight weeks. 

    Caterpillar Inc.
    CAT,
    +3.39%
    ,
    Chevron Corp.
    CVX,
    +1.17%

    And Amgen Inc.
    AMGN,
    +2.46%

    are the top-performing Dow stocks so far this month, having gained 29.3%, 21.2% and 18.3%, respectively, as of Friday.  

    In recent trade, the blue-chip average was up around 700 points, or 2.2%, on track for its biggest daily point and percentage gain in exactly one week.  

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  • The Dow is soaring as Big Tech tumbles: What that says about the Fed, recession fears, and the path ahead for stocks

    The Dow is soaring as Big Tech tumbles: What that says about the Fed, recession fears, and the path ahead for stocks

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    The past week offered a tale of two markets, with gains for the Dow Jones Industrial Average putting the blue-chip gauge on track for its best October on record while Big Tech heavyweights suffered a shellacking that had market veterans recalling the dot-com bust in the early 2000s.

    “You have a tug of war,” said Dan Suzuki, deputy chief investment officer at Richard Bernstein Advisors LLC (RBA), in a phone interview.

    For the technology sector, particularly the megacap names, earnings were a major drag on performance. For everything else, the market was short-term oversold at the same time optimism was building over expectations the Federal Reserve and other major global central banks will be less aggressive in tightening monetary policy in the future, he said.

    Read: Market expectations start to shift in direction of slower pace of rate hikes by Fed

    What’s telling is that the interest-rate sensitive tech sector would usually be expected to benefit from a moderation of expectations for tighter monetary policy, said Suzuki, who contends that tech stocks are likely in for a long period of underperformance versus their peers after leading the market higher over the last 12 years, a performance capped by soaring gains following the onset of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

    RBA has been arguing that there was “a major bubble within major portions of the equity market for over a year now,” Suzuki said. “We think this is the process of the bubble deflating and we think there’s probably further to go.”

    The Dow
    DJIA,
    +2.59%

    surged nearly 830 points, or 2.6%, on Friday to end at a two-month high and log a weekly gain of more than 5%. The blue-chip gauge’s October gain was 14.4% through Friday, which would mark its strongest monthly gain since January 1976 and its biggest October rise on record if it holds through Monday’s close, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

    While it was a tough week for many of Big Tech’s biggest beasts, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite
    COMP,
    -8.39%

    and tech-related sectors bounced sharply on Friday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq swung to a weekly gain of more than 2%, while the S&P 500
    SPX,
    +2.46%

    rose nearly 4% for the week.

    Big Tech companies lost more than $255 billion in market capitalization in the past week. Apple Inc.
    AAPL,
    +7.56%

    escaped the carnage, rallying Friday as investors appeared okay with a mixed earnings report. A parade of disappointing earnings sank shares of Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.
    META,
    +1.29%
    ,
    Google parent Alphabet Inc.
    GOOG,
    +4.30%

    GOOGL,
    +4.41%
    ,
    Amazon.com Inc.
    AMZN,
    -6.80%

    and Microsoft
    MSFT,
    +4.02%
    .

    Mark Hulbert: Technology stocks tumble — this is how you will know when to buy them again

    Together, the five companies have lost a combined $3 trillion in market capitalization this year, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

    Opinion: A $3 trillion loss: Big Tech’s horrible year is getting worse

    Aggressive interest rate increases by the Fed and other major central banks have punished tech and other growth stocks the most this year, as their value is based on expectations for earnings and cash flow far into the future. The accompanying rise in yields on Treasurys, which are viewed as risk-free, raises the opportunity cost of holding riskier assets like stocks. And the further out those expected earnings stretch, the bigger the hit.

    Excessive liquidity — a key ingredient in any bubble — has also contributed to tech weakness, said RBA’s Suzuki.

    And now investors see an emerging risk to Big Tech earnings from an overall slowdown in economic growth, Suzuki said.

    “A lot of people have the notion that these are secular growth stocks and therefore immune to the ups and downs of the overall economy — that’s not empirically true at all if you look at the history of profits for these stocks,” he said.

    Tech’s outperformance during the COVID-inspired recession may have given investors a false impression, with the sector benefiting from unique circumstances that saw households and businesses become more reliant on technology at a time when incomes were surging due to fiscal stimulus from the government. In a typical slowdown, tech profits tend to be very economically sensitive, he said.

    The Fed’s policy meeting will be the main event in the week ahead. While investors and economists overwhelmingly expect policy makers to deliver another supersize 75 basis point, or 0.75 percentage point, rate increase when the two-day gathering ends on Wednesday, expectations are mounting for Chairman Jerome Powell to indicate a smaller December may be on the table.

    However, all three major indexes remain in bear markets, so the question for investors is whether the bounce this week will survive if Powell fails to signal a downshift in expectations for rate rises next week.

    See: Another Fed jumbo rate hike is expected next week and then life gets difficult for Powell

    Those expectations helped power the Dow’s big gains over the past week, alongside solid earnings from a number of components, including global economic bellwether Caterpillar Inc.
    CAT,
    +3.39%
    .

    Overall, the Dow benefited because it’s “very tech-light, and it’s very heavy in energy and industrials, and those have been the winners,” Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth Management told MarketWatch’s Joseph Adinolfi on Friday. “The Dow just has more of the winners embedded in it and that has been the secret to its success.”

    Meanwhile, the outperformance of the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF
    RSP,
    +2.08%
    ,
    up 5.5% over the week, versus the market-cap-weighted SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust
    SPY,
    +2.38%
    ,
    underscored that while tech may be vulnerable to more declines, “traditional parts of the economy, including sectors that trade at a lower valuation, are proving resilient since the broad markets bounced nearly two weeks ago,” said Tom Essaye, founder of Sevens Report Research, in a Friday note.

    “Stepping back, this market and the economy more broadly are starting to remind me of the 2000-2002 setup, where extreme tech weakness weighed on the major indices, but more traditional parts of the market and the economy performed better,” he wrote.

    Suzuki said investors should remember that “bear markets always signal a change of leadership” and that means tech won’t be taking the reins when the next bull market begins.

    “You can’t debate that we’ve already got a signal and the signal is telling up that next cycle not going to look anything like the last 12 years,” he said.

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  • Why the Dow is having a killer month as it heads for best October ever

    Why the Dow is having a killer month as it heads for best October ever

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    The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been criticized by some market watchers for being a poor barometer of equity-market performance given its relatively small sample size of just 30 stocks.

    But this quality, along with the paucity of megacap technology names, has helped shepherd the index toward what’s expected to be its biggest October gain in its 126-year history.

    With a month-to-date gain of 14%, the Dow
    DJIA,
    +2.57%

    is on track for its best monthly performance since January 1976, when it rose 14.4%, according to Dow Jones Market Data. To clinch its best October ever, it only needs to hang on to a month-to-date gain of 10.65% by the time the U.S. market closes on Monday.

    The Dow is still in a bear market and remains down more than 10% for the year to date. That compares, however, with year-to-date losses of 18.6% for the S&P 500
    SPX,
    +2.40%

    and 29.6% for the Nasdaq Composite
    COMP,
    +2.74%
    .

    What exactly has made the Dow’s October performance so stellar?

     The blue-chip gauge is packed with energy and industrials stocks, which have been among the best performing sectors for the stock market since the start of the year, noted Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth Management. 

    These stocks have performed particularly well since the start of the latest quarterly earnings season, while megacap technology names like Meta Platforms Inc.
    META,
    +1.14%
    ,
    Amazon.com Inc.
    AMZN,
    -7.41%

    and Alphabet Inc.
    GOOG,
    +4.28%

    have sputtered after delivering results and guidance that disappointed Wall Street this week.

    “It’s very tech-light, and it’s very heavy in energy and industrials, and those have been the winners,” Hogan said. “The Dow just has more of the winners embedded in it and that has been the secret to its success.”

    See: Live markets coverage

    The Dow is on track to log its highest close in at least two months on Friday as it outperforms both the S&P 500
    SPX,
    +2.40%

    and Nasdaq Composite
    COMP,
    +2.74%
    .
    Furthermore, it’s on track to climb for a sixth straight session, what would be its longest winning streak since May 27, according to DJMD. 

    Adding to the list of notable factoids, the average is also on track to log a fourth straight weekly gain, which would cement its longest winning streak since Nov. 5, 2021, when the index rose for five straight weeks. 

    Caterpillar Inc.
    CAT,
    +3.22%
    ,
    Chevron Corp.
    CVX,
    +0.75%

    And Amgen Inc.
    AMGN,
    +2.21%

    are the top-performing Dow stocks so far this month, having gained 29.3%, 21.2% and 18.3%, respectively, as of Friday.  

    In recent trade, the blue-chip average was up around 700 points, or 2.2%, on track for its biggest daily point and percentage gain in exactly one week.  

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  • Apple earnings beat as record back-to-school Mac sales outweigh a slight miss on iPhones

    Apple earnings beat as record back-to-school Mac sales outweigh a slight miss on iPhones

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    At the end of a woeful week for Big Tech earnings, Apple Inc. managed to top expectations on revenue and earnings with the help of Macs selling at a record pace during the back-to-school season, which outweighed a slight miss on iPhone sales.

    Apple
    AAPL,
    -3.05%

    shares bounced between slight gains and losses in after-hours action Thursday, even as executives projected that revenue growth could slow in the holiday quarter. As has been the case throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple executives declined to offer a traditional financial forecast, but Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri told investors on a conference call that they expect a sequential slowdown in growth during the December quarter, driven in part by sharp currency impacts, tough comparisons for the Mac business and pressures on the services business.

    The smartphone giant’s revenue grew 8% in its fiscal fourth quarter, to $90.1 billion from $83.4 billion a year earlier, and came in ahead of the FactSet consensus of $88.7 billion. Apple generated $42.6 billion in its biggest business, iPhone sales, up from $38.9 billion a year before, but analysts were projecting $43.0 billion.

    A big driver of the upside came from Apple’s
    AAPL,
    -3.05%

    Mac segment, which posted a massive beat even as iPhone sales came up light. The Mac business set an all-time quarterly revenue record at $11.5 billion in the back-to-school quarter, up from $9.2 billion a year before and easily above the FactSet consensus, which called for $9.3 billion.

    Chief Executive Tim Cook explained on the call that the Mac category benefited from the launch of the MacBook Air with Apple’s custom M2 chip, as well as easing supply constraints that allowed Apple to meet a prior demand backlog. Maestri said he expects that Mac revenue will “decline substantially” on a year-over-year basis in the December quarter, however, as that period faces tough comparisons.

    A key question coming into Apple’s report was how demand for the company’s new iPhone 14 line has held up, especially given reports that the company has scaled back earlier production goals. Cook shared that while it was still early, “consumer demand was strong and better than we anticipated that it would be.”

    The company is supply-constrained on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models, Cook said, adding that it is difficult for the company to “determine the accurate mix” of its phones until it is able to fulfill all of its demand.

    Revenue performance across Apple’s product lines was mixed. While Mac sales were strong, iPad revenue fell to $7.2 billion from $8.3 billion, whereas analysts were modeling $7.8 billion in iPad revenue. That category saw “opposite” trends relative to the Mac business in that iPads were up against an “exceptionally strong iPad quarter” from a year before that included a product launch.

    The company raked in $9.7 billion in revenue across its wearables, home and accessories category, up from $8.8 billion in the same period a year ago. Analysts had expected revenue of $9.2 billion.

    Services revenue climbed to $19.2 billion from $18.3 billion but fell short of the FactSet consensus, which was for $20.0 billion. Maestri shared that while he expects the segment to grow in the December quarter, the business could be impacted by pressures on advertising and gaming, as well as foreign-exchange effects.

    For the latest quarter, Apple recorded net income of $20.7 billion, or $1.29 a share, compared with $20.6 billion, or $1.24 a share, in the year-earlier period. Analysts tracked by FactSet were expecting $1.27 a share in earnings.

    If Apple’s stock managed to hold gains through Friday’s close, it would likely be the only Big Tech company to see positive post-earnings stock performance this week. Shares of Microsoft Corp.
    MSFT,
    -1.98%
    ,
    Alphabet Inc.
    GOOG,
    -2.34%

    GOOGL,
    -2.85%
    ,
    and Meta Platforms Inc.
    META,
    -24.56%

    each posted sharp declines in the session after their respective reports, and Amazon.com Inc.
    AMZN,
    -4.06%

    shares were off 12% in late trading Thursday.

    Shares of Apple have lost 18% so far this year, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average
    DJIA,
    +0.61%

    — which counts Apple as one of its 30 components — has declined 12%.

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  • Apple Earnings Are on Deck as Consumer Demand Softens

    Apple Earnings Are on Deck as Consumer Demand Softens

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    Apple


    shares have been remarkably resilient in the face of this year’s tech stock selloff, falling less than 15% since the end of December, and sharply outperforming rivals


    Microsoft



    Alphabet


    and


    Amazon


    which are all down from 26% to 28%.

    Apple (ticker: AAPL) sits with a $2.4 trillion market valuation—$500 billion more than Microsoft, $1 trillion more than Alphabet, and nearly double the size of Amazon.

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  • Microsoft stock slammed by cloud-growth fears, taking Amazon down with it

    Microsoft stock slammed by cloud-growth fears, taking Amazon down with it

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    Microsoft Corp. shares fell more than 6% in after-hours trading Tuesday as the company’s cloud-computing growth hit a sudden deceleration and executives guided for holiday-season revenue to come in more than $2 billion lower than expectations.

    The Azure cloud-computing business has grown into the largest and most important business for Microsoft
    MSFT,
    +1.38%
    ,
    and there have been concerns about cloud growth as the U.S. faces a potential recession for the first time since the technology became ubiquitous. Microsoft executives said that Azure grew by 35% in their fiscal first quarter, a marked slowdown from Azure’s 40% growth rate in the previous quarter, as well as the 50% growth shown in the same quarter last year; analysts on average were expecting 36.5% growth, according to FactSet.

    Opinion: The cloud boom is coming back to Earth, and that could be scary for tech stocks

    In the current quarter, Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood suggested a similar sequential decline is in store for Azure, saying percentage growth should decline by five points on a constant-currency basis. Hood also suggested that more cost cuts could be coming to Microsoft, after the company confirmed layoffs of fewer than 1,000 employees earlier this month.

    “While we continue to help our customers do more with less, we will do the same internally,” she said. “And you should expect to see our operating-expense growth moderate materially through the year while we focus on growing productivity of the significant head-count investments we’ve made over the last year.”

    Microsoft shares slid to declines of more than 6% in after-hours trading following Hood’s forecast, which was provided in a conference call. Shares closed with a 1.4% increase at $250.66.

    Concerns about cloud growth immediately spread to Azure’s biggest competitor, Amazon Web Services, as Amazon.com Inc. stock
    AMZN,
    +0.65%

    fell more than 4% in after-hours trading.

    Microsoft reported fiscal first-quarter earnings of $17.56 billion, or $2.35 a share, down from $2.71 a share in the same quarter a year ago, when the tech giant disclosed a 44 cent-per-share tax benefit. Revenue increased to $50.1 billion from $45.32 billion a year ago. Analysts on average were expecting earnings of $2.31 a share on sales of $49.66 billion, according to FactSet.

    For the fiscal second quarter, Hood guided for revenue of $52.35 billion to $53.35 billion, while analysts on average were expecting sales of $56.16 billion, according to FactSet. Hood said that “Intelligent Cloud” revenue should land from $21.25 billion to $21.55 billion, while analysts on average were projecting $21.82 billion heading into the print; Microsoft’s other revenue-segment forecasts were even further off analysts’ average expectations.

    Microsoft has also suffered from the strengthening dollar, as well as a sharp downturn in personal-computer sales, which spiked during the pandemic but are now showing record regression.

    For more: The pandemic PC boom is over, but its legacy will live on

    Microsoft reported PC revenue of $13.3 billion for the quarter, roughly flat from $13.31 billion a year before and beating the average analyst estimate of $13.12 billion, according to FactSet. While PCs have long been what consumers largely know Microsoft for, their importance to the company’s financials has declined in recent years as cloud computing has grown in importance.

    “Historically, Windows was a very large driver of Microsoft revenue and, given its strong margins, a disproportionate driver of earnings,” Bernstein analysts wrote in a preview of the report, while maintaining an “overweight” rating. “Over time other businesses, especially Microsoft’s commercial Cloud, have grown fast while the Windows business has grown quite slower, decreasing the relative impact of Windows.”

    The “Intelligent Cloud” segment reported first-quarter revenue of $20.3 billion, up from $16.96 billion a year ago but slightly lower than the average analyst estimate tracked by FactSet of $20.46 billion. Azure’s 35% growth was the slowest Microsoft has reported in records dating back through the prior two fiscal years; Microsoft only reports percentage growth for its Azure cloud-computing product, even as main rivals Amazon.com Inc.
    AMZN,
    +0.65%

    and Alphabet Inc.
    GOOGL,
    +1.91%

    GOOG,
    +1.90%

    report revenue and profit margin for their cloud-computing products.

    Microsoft’s other revenue segment, “Productivity and Business Processes,” reported revenue of $16.5 billion, up from $15.04 billion a year ago and higher than the average analyst estimate of $16.13 billion, according to FactSet. That segment includes Microsoft’s core cloud-software properties such as its Office suite of products — which is being officially renamed Microsoft 365 — as well as LinkedIn and some other properties.

    Microsoft stock has declined 25.5% so far this year, as the S&P 500 index
    SPX,
    +1.63%

    has dropped 20.3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average
    DJIA,
    +1.07%

    — which counts Microsoft as one of its 30 components — has declined 13.3%.

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  • Microsoft stock slips as Azure growth slows and cloud sales miss projections

    Microsoft stock slips as Azure growth slows and cloud sales miss projections

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    Microsoft Corp. shares slipped in after-hours trading Tuesday despite an earnings beat, as the company’s cloud-computing revenue came in lower than expected and its core cloud product, Azure, grew at a slower rate than projections.

    Microsoft’s
    MSFT,
    +1.38%

    cloud-computing business has grown into the largest and most important business for the company, especially for investors who like Azure’s high margins and strong growth. There have been concerns about cloud growth as the U.S. faces its first possible recession since the technology became ubiquitous, and Azure’s growth in Tuesday’s report was the slowest Microsoft has reported in the past two years, while Microsoft’s cloud division was the only segment to come in lower than estimates.

    The “Intelligent Cloud” segment reported first-quarter revenue of $20.3 billion, up from $16.96 billion a year ago but slightly lower than the average analyst estimate tracked by FactSet of $20.46 billion. Microsoft said that Azure grew by 35%, while analysts on average were expecting 36.5% growth, according to FactSet.

    Opinion: The cloud boom is coming back to Earth, and that could be scary for tech stocks

    That is a marked slowdown from Azure’s 40% growth rate in the previous quarter, as well as the 50% growth shown in the same quarter last year. Microsoft only reports percentage growth for its core cloud-computing product, even as main rivals Amazon.com Inc.
    AMZN,
    +0.65%

    and Alphabet Inc.
    GOOGL,
    +1.91%

    GOOG,
    +1.90%

    report revenue and profit margin for their cloud-computing products.

    Overall, Microsoft
    MSFT,
    +1.38%

    reported fiscal first-quarter earnings of $17.56 billion, or $2.35 a share, down from $2.71 a share in the same quarter a year ago, when Microsoft disclosed a 44 cent-per-share tax benefit. Revenue increased to $50.1 billion from $45.32 billion a year ago. Analysts on average were expecting earnings of $2.31 a share on sales of $49.66 billion, according to FactSet.

    Microsoft shares fell between 1% and 2% in after-hours trading following the release of the results, after closing with a 1.4% increase at $250.66. Microsoft stock tends to react most strongly in after-hours trading following earnings reports after executives share their forecast for the current quarter in their conference call, which is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Eastern.

    Microsoft has started to show some effects of a weakening macroeconomic climate, confirming layoffs of fewer than 1,000 employees earlier this month. Microsoft has suffered from the strengthening dollar, as well as a sharp downturn in personal-computer sales, which spiked during the pandemic but are now showing record regression.

    For more: The pandemic PC boom is over, but its legacy will live on

    Microsoft reported PC revenue of $13.3 billion for the quarter, roughly flat from $13.31 billion a year before and beating the average analyst estimate of $13.12 billion, according to FactSet. While PCs have long been what consumers largely know Microsoft for, their importance to the company’s financials has declined in recent years as cloud computing has grown in importance.

    “Historically, Windows was a very large driver of Microsoft revenue and, given its strong margins, a disproportionate driver of earnings,” Bernstein analysts wrote in a preview of the report, while maintaining an “overweight” rating. “Over time other businesses, especially Microsoft’s commercial Cloud, have grown fast while the Windows business has grown quite slower, decreasing the relative impact of Windows.”

    Microsoft’s other revenue segment, “Productivity and Business Processes,” reported revenue of $16.5 billion, up from $15.04 billion a year ago and higher than the average analyst estimate of $16.13 billion, according to FactSet. That segment includes Microsoft’s core cloud-software properties such as its Office suite of products — which is being officially renamed Microsoft 365 — as well as LinkedIn and some other properties.

    Microsoft’s second-quarter guidance will be crucial to investors hoping that the tech giant can withstand any economic jolts headed its way and show stronger growth in cloud. Analysts on average were expecting overall second-quarter revenue of $56.16 billion and “Intelligent Cloud” sales of $21.82 billion heading into the print, according to FactSet, while some wrote that they would like to hear more from Microsoft executives about the picture for the full year.

    “Our hope is that management provides a bit more color on full-year fiscal 2023 beyond just the double-digit revenue growth and operating margins being roughly flat commentary from last quarter,” MoffetNathanson analysts, who have a “market perform” rating and $282 price target on the stock, wrote in their preview. “We would expect headcount-related revenue streams like Office to see increasing headwinds in coming quarters, but volume businesses like Azure, which is tied to data, being more resilient.”

    Microsoft stock has declined 25.5% so far this year, as the S&P 500 index
    SPX,
    +1.63%

    has dropped 20.3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average
    DJIA,
    +1.07%

    — which counts Microsoft as one of its 30 components — has declined 13.3%.

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  • Google ad sales take a hit and widely miss estimates, Alphabet stock drops 6%

    Google ad sales take a hit and widely miss estimates, Alphabet stock drops 6%

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    Alphabet Inc. is feeling the sting of a downturn in digital-ad spending. Google’s parent company reported just 6% sales growth year-over-year Tuesday and missed widely on its advertising revenue, pushing shares down in extended trading.

    Alphabet 
    GOOGL,
    +1.91%

     
    GOOG,
    +1.90%

     reported net income of $13.9 billion, or $1.06 a share, in its fiscal third quarter, compared with net income of $1.40 a share in the same quarter a year ago. Total revenue improved a middling 6% to $69.1 billion from $61.88 billion a year ago, the slowest year-over-year growth since sales declined in June 2020, while revenue after removing traffic-acquisition costs was $57.3 billion, compared with $53.6 billion in the year-ago period.

    Analysts surveyed by FactSet had estimated net income of $1.26 a share on ex-TAC revenue of $58.2 billion and overall revenue of $71 billion. Alphabet shares slipped more than 6% in after-hours trading immediately following the release of the results, after closing with a 2% increase at $104.48.

    The results, which missed in several key product categories, further rattled investors, already spooked by poor quarterly results last week from Snap Inc. 
    SNAP,
    +15.52%
    .
    Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc. 
    META,
    +6.01%

    is scheduled to report its third-quarter results Wednesday.

    Alphabet Chief Executive Sundar Pichai acknowledged the shortfall in ad revenue during a conference call with analysts. He vowed to take several measures, including a sharpened focus on products that improve search through artificial intelligence and to scale back hiring and other operating expenses.

    “There is no question we are operating in an uncertain environment,” Alphabet Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said on the call, noting reductions in ad spending by financial services that deepened during the third quarter.

    Google’s total advertising sales improved to $54.5 billion from $53.13 billion a year ago, but badly missed analysts’ average expectations for $56.58 billion. Search was $39.5 billion, compared with $37.93 billion last year. YouTube ad sales slipped to $7.07 billion from $7.21 billion a year ago.

    “When Google stumbles, it’s a bad omen for digital advertising at large,” Insider Intelligence analyst Evelyn Mitchell said. “Not only did Google miss analyst expectations for topline revenue, YouTube ad revenues shrank for the first time since Google started reporting YouTube earnings separately in Q4 2019, due in large part to persistent competition in streaming and short video.”

    Google’s Cloud revenue did climb to $6.9 billion from $4.99 billion; Google Cloud is believed to be third in cloud sales behind rivals Amazon.com Inc. 
    AMZN,
    +0.65%

    and Microsoft Corp. 
    MSFT,
    +1.38%
    .

    As is its customary practice, Alphabet did not disclose fourth-quarter guidance. But Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat cautioned during the analyst call that the company faces “tough comps” in the current fourth quarter. Last year, Alphabet raked in $75.3 billion in Q4 revenue.

    Google’s stock has skidded 28% so far this year. The broader S&P 500 index 
    SPX,
    +1.63%

    is down 19% in 2022.

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  • These 27 stocks can give you a more diversified portfolio than the S&P 500 — and that’s a key advantage right now

    These 27 stocks can give you a more diversified portfolio than the S&P 500 — and that’s a key advantage right now

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    You probably already know that because of market-capitalization weighting, a broad index such as the S&P 500
    SPX,
    -0.67%

    can be concentrated in a handful of stocks. Index funds are popular for good reasons — they tend to have low expenses and it is difficult for active managers to outperform them over the long term.

    For example, look at the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust
    SPY,
    -0.71%
    ,
    which tracks the S&P 500 by holding all of its stocks by the same weighting as the index. Five stocks — Apple Inc.
    AAPL,
    +0.08%
    ,
    Microsoft Corp.
    MSFT,
    -0.85%
    ,
    Amazon.com Inc.
    AMZN,
    -1.11%
    ,
    Alphabet Inc.
    GOOG,
    -1.08%

    GOOGL,
    -1.13%

    and Tesla Inc.
    TSLA,
    +0.84%
    ,
    make up 21.5% of the portfolio.

    But there are other considerations when it comes to diversification — namely, factors. During an interview, Scott Weber of Vaughan Nelson Investment Management in Houston explained how groups of stock and commodities can move together, adding to a lack of diversification in a typical portfolio or index fund.

    Weber co-manages the $293 million Natixis Vaughan Nelson Select Fund
    VNSAX,
    -0.96%
    ,
    which carries a five-star rating (the highest) from investment-researcher Morningstar, and has outperformed its benchmark, the S&P 500.

    Vaughan Nelson is a Houston-based affiliate of Natixis Investment Managers, with about $13 billion in assets under management, including $5 billion managed under the same strategy as the fund, including the Natixis Vaughan Nelson Select ETF
    VNSE,
    -0.87%
    .
    The ETF was established in Sept, 2020, so does not yet have a Morningstar rating.

    Factoring-in the factors

    Weber explained how he and colleagues incorporate 35 factors into their portfolio selection process. For example, a fund might hold shares of real-estate investment trusts (REITs), financial companies and energy producers. These companies are in different sectors, as defined by Standard & Poor’s. Yet their performance may be correlated.

    Weber pointed out that REITs, for example, were broken out of the financial sector to become their own sector in 2016. “Did that make REIT’s more sensitive to interest rates? The answer is no,” he said. “The S&P sector buckets are somewhat  better than arbitrary, but they are not perfect.”

    Of course 2022 is something of an exception, with so many assets dropping in price at the same time. But over the long term, factor analysis can identify correlations and lead money managers to limit their investments in companies, sectors or industries whose prices tend to move together. This style has helped the Natixis Vaughan Nelson Select Fund outperform against its benchmark, Weber said.

    Getting back to the five largest components of the S&P 500, they are all tech-oriented, even though only two, Apple and Microsoft, are in the information technology sector, while Alphabet is in the communications sector and Tesla is in the consumer discretionary sector. “Regardless of the sectors,” they tend to move together, Weber said.

    Exposure to commodity prices, timing of revenue streams through economic cycles (which also incorporates currency exposure), inflation and many other items are additional factors that Weber and his colleagues incorporate into their broad allocation strategy and individual stock selections.

    For example, you might ordinarily expect inflation, real estate and gold to move together, Weber said. But as we are seeing this year, with high inflation and rising interest rates, there is downward pressure on real-estate prices, while gold prices
    GC00,
    -0.01%

    have declined 10% this year.

    Digging further, the factors also encompass sensitivity of investments to U.S. and other countries’ government bonds of various maturities, credit spreads between corporate and government bonds in developed countries, exchange rates, and measures of liquidity, price volatility and momentum.

    Stock selection

    The largest holding of the Select fund is NextEra Energy Inc.
    NEE,
    -1.89%
    ,
    which owns FPL, Florida’s largest electric utility. FPL is phasing-out coal plants and replacing power-generating capacity with natural gas as well as wind and solar facilities.

    Weber said: “There’s not a company on the planet that is better at getting alternate (meaning solar and wind) generation deployed. But because they own FPL, some of my investors say it is one of the largest carbon emitters on the planet.”

    He added that “as a consequence of their skill in operating, they re generating amazing returns for investors.” NextEra’s share shave returned 446% over the past 10 years. One practice that has helped to elevate the company’s return on equity, and presumably its stock price, has been “dropping assets down” into NextEra Energy Partners LP
    NEP,
    -2.61%
    ,
    which NEE manages, Weber said. He added that the assets put into the partnership tend to be “great at cash-flow generation, but not on achieving growth.”

    When asked for more examples of stocks in the fund that may provide excellent long-term returns, Weber mentioned Monolithic Power Systems Inc.
    MPWR,
    -0.24%
    ,
    as a way to take advantage of the broad decline in semiconductor stocks this year. (The iShares Semiconductor ETF
    SOXX,
    +0.64%

    has declined 21% this year, while industry stalwarts Nvidia Corp.
    NVDA,
    +0.70%

    and Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
    AMD,
    -1.19%

    are down 59% and 60%, respectively.)

    He said Monolithic Power has been consistently making investments that improve its return on invested capital (ROIC). A company’s ROIC is its profit divided by the sum of the carrying value of stock it has issued over the years and its current debt. It doesn’t reflect the stock price and is considered a good measure of a management team’s success at making investment decisions and managing projects. Monolithic Power’s ROICC for 2021 was 21.8%, according to FactSet, rising from 13.2% five years earlier.

    “We want to see a business generating a return on capital in excess of its cost of capital. In addition, they need to invest their capital at incrementally improving returns,” Weber said.

    Another example Weber gave of a stock held by the fund is Dollar General Corp.
    DG,
    +0.33%
    ,
    which he called a much better operator than rival Dollar Tree Inc.
    DLTR,
    +0.14%
    ,
    which owns Family Dollar. He cited DG’s roll-out of frozen-food and fresh food offerings, as well as its growth runway: “They still have 8,000 or 9,000 stores to build-out” in the U.S., he said.

    Fund holdings

    In order to provide a full current list of stocks held under Weber’s strategy, here are the 27 stocks held by the the Natixis Vaughan Select ETF as of Sept. 30. The largest 10 positions made up 49% of the portfolio:

    Company

    Ticker

    % of portfolio

    NextEra Energy Inc.

    NEE,
    -1.89%
    5.74%

    Dollar General Corp.

    DG,
    +0.33%
    5.51%

    Danaher Corp.

    DHR,
    -2.89%
    4.93%

    Microsoft Corp.

    MSFT,
    -0.85%
    4.91%

    Amazon.com Inc.

    AMZN,
    -1.11%
    4.90%

    Sherwin-Williams Co.

    SHW,
    -2.53%
    4.80%

    Wheaton Precious Metals Corp.

    WPM,
    -2.28%
    4.76%

    Intercontinental Exchange Inc.

    ICE,
    -1.16%
    4.52%

    McCormick & Co.

    MKC,
    +0.11%
    4.48%

    Clorox Co.

    CLX,
    +1.27%
    4.39%

    Aon PLC Class A

    AON,
    +0.21%
    4.33%

    Jack Henry & Associates Inc.

    JKHY,
    -0.97%
    4.08%

    Motorola Solutions Inc.

    MSI,
    -0.64%
    4.08%

    Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.

    VRTX,
    -2.72%
    4.01%

    Union Pacific Corp.

    UNP,
    -0.78%
    3.99%

    Alphabet Inc. Class A

    GOOGL,
    -1.13%
    3.03%

    Johnson & Johnson

    JNJ,
    -0.80%
    2.98%

    Nvidia Corp.

    NVDA,
    +0.70%
    2.92%

    Cogent Communications Holdings Inc.

    CCOI,
    -2.10%
    2.81%

    Kosmos Energy Ltd.

    KOS,
    +5.62%
    2.68%

    VeriSign Inc.

    VRSN,
    -0.43%
    2.15%

    Chemed Corp.

    CHE,
    -0.73%
    2.06%

    Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class B

    BRK.B,
    -1.18%
    2.00%

    Saia Inc.

    SAIA,
    -4.36%
    1.97%

    Monolithic Power Systems Inc.

    MPWR,
    -0.24%
    1.96%

    Entegris Inc.

    ENTG,
    -0.17%
    1.93%

    Luminar Technologies Inc. Class A

    LAZR,
    -6.90%
    0.96%

    Source: Natixis Funds

    You can click on the tickers for more about each company. Click here for a detailed guide to the wealth of information available free on the MarketWatch.com quote page.

    Fund performance

    The Natixis Vaughan Select Fund was established on June 29, 2012. Here’s a 10-year chart showing the total return of the fund’s Class A shares against that of the S&P 500, with dividends reinvested. Sales charges are excluded from the chart and the performance numbers. In the current environment for mutual-fund distribution, sales charges are often waived for purchases of new shares through investment advisers.


    FactSet

    Here’s a comparison of returns for 2022 and average annual returns for various periods of the fund’s Class A shares to that of the S&P 500 and its Morningstar fund category through Oct. 18:

     

    Total return – 2022 through Oct. 18

    Average return – 3 Years

    Average return – 5 Years

    Average return – 10 years

    Vaughan Nelson Select Find – Class A

    -20.2%

    11.8%

    10.8%

    13.0%

    S&P 500

    -21.0%

    9.4%

    9.7%

    12.0%

    Morningstar Large Blend category

    -20.3%

    8.1%

    8.2%

    10.7%

    Sources: Morningstar, FactSet

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  • These 11 stocks can lead your portfolio’s rebound after the S&P 500 ‘earnings recession’ and a market bottom next year

    These 11 stocks can lead your portfolio’s rebound after the S&P 500 ‘earnings recession’ and a market bottom next year

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    This may surprise you: Wall Street analysts expect earnings for the S&P 500 to increase 8% during 2023, despite all the buzz about a possible recession as the Federal Reserve tightens monetary policy to quell inflation.

    Ken Laudan, a portfolio manager at Kornitzer Capital Management in Mission, Kan., isn’t buying it. He expects an “earnings recession” for the S&P 500
    SPX,
    +2.78%

    — that is, a decline in profits of around 10%. But he also expects that decline to set up a bottom for the stock market.

    Laudan’s predictions for the S&P 500 ‘earnings recession’ and bottom

    Laudan, who manages the $83 million Buffalo Large Cap Fund
    BUFEX,
    -2.86%

    and co-manages the $905 million Buffalo Discovery Fund
    BUFTX,
    -2.82%
    ,
    said during an interview: “It is not unusual to see a 20% hit [to earnings] in a modest recession. Margins have peaked.”

    The consensus among analysts polled by FactSet is for weighted aggregate earnings for the S&P 500 to total $238.23 a share in 2023, which would be an 8% increase from the current 2022 EPS estimate of $220.63.

    Laudan said his base case for 2023 is for earnings of about $195 to $200 a share and for that decline in earnings (about 9% to 12% from the current consensus estimate for 2022) to be “coupled with an economic recession of some sort.”

    He expects the Wall Street estimates to come down, and said that “once Street estimates get to $205 or $210, I think stocks will take off.”

    He went further, saying “things get really interesting at 3200 or 3300 on the S&P.” The S&P 500 closed at 3583.07 on Oct. 14, a decline of 24.8% for 2022, excluding dividends.

    Laudan said the Buffalo Large Cap Fund was about 7% in cash, as he was keeping some powder dry for stock purchases at lower prices, adding that he has been “fairly defensive” since October 2021 and was continuing to focus on “steady dividend-paying companies with strong balance sheets.”

    Leaders for the stock market’s recovery

    After the market hits bottom, Laudan expects a recovery for stocks to begin next year, as “valuations will discount and respond more quickly than the earnings will.”

    He expects “long-duration technology growth stocks” to lead the rally, because “they got hit first.” When asked if Nvidia Corp.
    NVDA,
    +6.14%

    and Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
    AMD,
    +3.69%

    were good examples, in light of the broad decline for semiconductor stocks and because both are held by the Buffalo Large Cap Fund, Laudan said: “They led us down and they will bounce first.”

    Laudan said his “largest tech holding” is ASML Holding N.V.
    ASML,
    +3.79%
    ,
    which provides equipment and systems used to fabricate computer chips.

    Among the largest tech-oriented companies, the Buffalo Large Cap fund also holds shares of Apple Inc.
    AAPL,
    +3.09%
    ,
    Microsoft Corp.
    MSFT,
    +3.88%
    ,
    Amazon.com Inc.
    AMZN,
    +6.63%

    and Alphabet Inc.
    GOOG,
    +3.91%

    GOOGL,
    +3.73%
    .

    Laudan also said he had been “overweight’ in UnitedHealth Group Inc.
    UNH,
    +1.77%
    ,
    Danaher Corp.
    DHR,
    +2.64%

    and Linde PLC
    LIN,
    +2.25%

    recently and had taken advantage of the decline in Adobe Inc.’s
    ADBE,
    +2.32%

    price following the announcement of its $20 billion acquisition of Figma, by scooping up more shares.

    Summarizing the declines

    To illustrate what a brutal year it has been for semiconductor stocks, the iShares Semiconductor ETF
    SOXX,
    +2.12%
    ,
    which tracks the PHLX Semiconductor Index
    SOX,
    +2.29%

    of 30 U.S.-listed chip makers and related equipment manufacturers, has dropped 44% this year. Then again, SOXX had risen 38% over the past three years and 81% for five years, underlining the importance of long-term thinking for stock investors, even during this terrible bear market for this particular tech space.

    Here’s a summary of changes in stock prices (again, excluding dividends) and forward price-to-forward-earnings valuations during 2022 through Oct. 14 for every stock mentioned in this article. The stocks are sorted alphabetically:

    Company

    Ticker

    2022 price change

    Forward P/E

    Forward P/E as of Dec. 31, 2021

    Apple Inc.

    AAPL,
    +3.09%
    -22%

    22.2

    30.2

    Adobe Inc.

    ADBE,
    +2.32%
    -49%

    19.4

    40.5

    Amazon.com Inc.

    AMZN,
    +6.63%
    -36%

    62.1

    64.9

    Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

    AMD,
    +3.69%
    -61%

    14.7

    43.1

    ASML Holding N.V. ADR

    ASML,
    +3.79%
    -52%

    22.7

    41.2

    Danaher Corp.

    DHR,
    +2.64%
    -23%

    24.3

    32.1

    Alphabet Inc. Class C

    GOOG,
    +3.91%
    -33%

    17.5

    25.3

    Linde PLC

    LIN,
    +2.25%
    -21%

    22.2

    29.6

    Microsoft Corp.

    MSFT,
    +3.88%
    -32%

    22.5

    34.0

    Nvidia Corp.

    NVDA,
    +6.14%
    -62%

    28.9

    58.0

    UnitedHealth Group Inc.

    UNH,
    +1.77%
    2%

    21.5

    23.2

    Source: FactSet

    You can click on the tickers for more about each company. Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available free on the MarketWatch quote page.

    The forward P/E ratio for the S&P 500 declined to 16.9 as of the close on Oct. 14 from 24.5 at the end of 2021, while the forward P/E for SOXX declined to 13.2 from 27.1.

    Don’t miss: This is how high interest rates might rise, and what could scare the Federal Reserve into a policy pivot

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