As the S&P 500 tries to recapture highs, a handful of stocks have already hit their own records.
Deere, Sherwin-Williams, CarMax, Best Buy, Nike and UnitedHealth are among the standout names that have notched records this week.
Quint Tatro, president of Joule Financial, sees their breakouts as a positive for the entire market.
“It’s wonderful that we’re talking about stocks that are making new highs that are not big-cap tech stocks so I think that right there within itself is fantastic,” Tatro told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Tuesday.
However, not all of those stocks should be considered buys here, according to Tatro.
“Talk about a Sherwin-Williams or a John Deere – I mean, these are stocks that are trading at very, very rich valuations and, despite it being a zero interest rate environment basically, they’re pretty significantly levered up. Only UnitedHealth and Best Buy are names that are not as levered with decent valuations,” said Tatro.
Ari Wald, head of technical analysis at Oppenheimer, calls the entire group “bullish” and said their runs should continue.
“Stocks making new 52-week highs, that’s a good thing. That’s a sign of relative strength, especially when it occurs, ahead of the broader benchmark so dumping stocks just because they’re reaching new highs, we’re generally of the view [that it is] a poor investment strategy. So yes, we recommend sticking with the winners,” Wald said during the same “Trading Nation” segment.
One name, in particular, stood out to Wald as a breakout star.
“It’s worthwhile to mention, UnitedHealth, ticker UNH, because it’s not only breaking above resistance from February, but it also offers rotation potential versus the S&P 500,” he said. “We can see that it has corrected into the bullish slope of its 200-day moving average. We generally define that as a near-term opportunity to buy long-term strength.”
UnitedHealth is up 7% this year. It hit a record on Tuesday for the fourth session in a row.
