Worries over the global economic outlook, along with volatile oil prices and commodities rout, have led investors to dump riskier stocks and scurry toward safe-haven assets, such as gold and government bonds.
While the U.S. economy with its moderate growth expectations amid the global mayhem offers an attractive investment opportunity, the global concerns have spread its tentacles in the U.S. growth outlook as well, keeping the domestic markets on tenterhooks.
This is evident from the slow pace of interest rate hikes adopted by the Federal Reserve. The Fed’s cautious stance was further reinforced by its Chairwoman Janet Yellen at a speech at the Economic Club of New York on Tuesday, which put an end to the hawkish tone of Fed officials that was rekindling the likelihood of a rate hike at the April meeting.
Factors like an improving labor market, lower unemployment rate, moderately expanding consumer spending and gradual recovery in the housing market increase the possibility of two rate hikes this year. However, weak manufacturing and net exports data, lackluster capital spending and business investment as well as continued bouts of global turbulence are enough to keep the Fed in check and justify a slower path for rate hikes.
The markets welcomed Yellen’s dovish note by reversing early losses with the S&P 500 index and the Dow industrials rising to their highest close of 2016. While S&P 500 returned to the positive territory for the year, the year-to-date returns of the index still stands at a mere 0.5%.
A Profitable Investment Strategy
While the majority of the stocks in the S&P 500 index are performing poorly, there are certain stocks that have proven their worth by successfully outperforming the index so far this year. Despite the global issues hitting stock markets badly, these stocks have managed to return more than 15% to investors, compared to the marginal increase in the S&P 500 index.
A solid price increase implies robust demand for the stock, which is often explained by either strong fundamentals or some positive news. And these may keep boosting the stock price. A company with strong fundamentals and future prospective growth can easily carry the momentum forward.
With the help of our new style score system, we have identified five stocks that have crushed the markets so far in 2016, hold excellent prospects and are well-positioned for future earnings growth as well.
All the stocks selected herein flaunt a solid Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy) and have witnessed a relative price change (comparison of calendar year-to-date price change of a stock with the S&P 500) of more than 15, so far in 2016. Also, these stocks sport a positive projected EPS growth rate (F1/F0).
