The S&P 500 (finished the week ending October 25th, with modest losses, down 0.96% from last Friday. The index is 0.96% away from its record close last week and is now up 22.46% year-to-date.
The US market is doing fine in October after the best September in years in the USA: the S&P 500 finished the week at 5,808.12, only 70 points from an ATH 5,878.76 reached on October 17th. The 50-day moving average is at 5,682.68, which was tested successfully in August/September/October and the market has stayed strong.
October has not been volatile month...yet. The coming three weeks will be interesting with the US elections taking centre stage. The market has a Trump victory priced in, but what if Harris and Dems pull off an upset?
My stock picking year so far
2024 has been a very successful year for stock picking on Wall Street. My personal picks have enjoyed great success with few exceptions – in order of the pick,
- September: Nvidia [NASDAQ:NVDA] +206.09%
- October: Skechers [NYSE:SKX] +22,61%
- November: Palantir Technologies [NYSE:PLTR] +152.16%
- December: General Dynamics [NYSE:GD] +23.56%
- February: Live Nation Entertainment [NYSE:LYV] +32.18%
- March: Meta Platforms [NASDAQ:META] +13.29%
- April: RTX Corp [NYSE:RTX] +25.16%
- August: Ralph Lauren [NYSE:RL] +16.23%
- October: Agnico Eagle Mines [NYSE:AEM] +8.6%
compared to the US S&P 500 index end of September 4,514.87 to 5,808.12 being up +28.64% (all data October 25th, 2024).
Since we started the Wall Street column in September 2023, I have been able to show that stock picking using fundamental research and analysis can pay off – and you can beat the market with some picks - two out of nine of my picks beating the market, but when equally weighted the two serious outperformers lifted the average return to 55.54%, easily beating the S&P 500 index.
When we analyze my holdings by market cap size we can see two megacaps (over $1trillion) namely NVDA and META, stocks which usually do not deliver much upside, but with the Artificial Intelligence boom these two stock picks have worked especially well. This month NVDA has already briefly passed Apple [NASDAQ:AAPL] in terms of market cap and both are trading at around the $3.5 trillion level. I would not be surprised if NVDA turns into the number market cap stock in the USA by end of the year 2024! What a run!
Looking at the other picks so far, we have one large (over $100 billion) in RTX, and three in the medium size category (PLTR, GD & LYV). The rest are in small caps with less than $20 billion but higher than $10 billion - RL and SKX.
My take on market cap and stock picking
All four market cap sizes work when picking stocks, as proven last year. I prefer to pick stocks from over $20 billion to less than $100 billion, since these stocks will have more room to grow than megacaps or large stocks. The real small caps with less than $10 billion market cap are high risk, high reward stocks in my opinion. The higher the market cap, the more analysts are following the stock, thus there are fewer surprises. My portfolio is an active 100% growth portfolio with no dividend stocks chosen. I report all actions in my monthly column on The Armchair Trader.
US Stock of the Month
This tip is THE stock for the holidays in my opinion, with operations in the ever-expanding environment of toys and gaming. The company has turned the page and will be enjoying great success in the quarters to come. With all the bad things happening around the world - let’s enjoy the holidays with toys for children and gaming with the people we love.
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