Stocks hit a rough patch after the Club’s March Monthly Meeting as Wall Street grappled with increasing odds of higher-for-longer interest rates. The S & P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 3%, respectively, from the close on the March 27 meeting day through Tuesday’s session. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite experienced a more-than-4% loss during the period. The losses would have been steeper if not for the strong start to this week. On Monday, the S & P 500 and Nasdaq snapped six-day losing streaks and followed that up with additional gains Tuesday. The sell-off had dragged the market into oversold territory, according to the S & P 500 Short Range Oscillator. That prompted the Club put its arsenal of cash to work , selectively purchasing shares of high-quality companies at attractive levels. After Tuesday’s gains, the market is no longer oversold, according to the S & P Oscillator. Here are our five top-performing stocks since the March Monthly Meeting. They span four sectors, ranging from financials to tech. WFC YTD mountain Wells Fargo (WFC) year-to-date performance Wells Fargo led the way, with shares jumping 5.8% over the period. The stock received a nice boost following the bank’s first-quarter earnings release — albeit on a delayed reaction. Wells Fargo beat on the top-and-bottom lines and disclosed a sizeable increase in stock buybacks during the period compared with the fourth quarter. “Talk about a vote of confidence,” Jim Cramer said after the results, referring to the boost in buybacks. The Club also was upbeat on management’s remarks about fee-based incomes growing as a percentage of Wells Fargo’s total revenue. Jim argued that fees reduce volatility and provide a great form of annuity for the bank. GOOGL YTD mountain Alphabet (GOOGL) year-to-date performance Alphabet stock rose 4.9% since the March Monthly Meeting, placing the Google parent in second place on the gainers list. Investor sentiment improved leading up to a string of generative artificial intelligence-related announcements during the company’s cloud-computing summit , Google Cloud Next. Most notably, Alphabet on April 9 announced a new Arm -based server chip and several generative AI service offerings. The event gave the Club more assurance of the company’s ability to compete in the heated AI arms race among Big Tech players. Shares hit an all-time high of $159.41 apiece on April 11, the final day of Google Cloud Next. The stock gave back some of those gains in the sessions that followed, but it is still less than 1% below its record peak. It closed Tuesday at $158.86 per share. PANW YTD mountain Palo Alto Networks (PANW) year-to-date performance Palo Alto Networks occupies the No. 3 spot, with shares advancing 4% since the March 27 close. The gains are welcome for the stock, which continues to trade well below where it did before a brutal post-earnings sell-off in late February. Although we don’t see one individual catalyst for the recent upswing, the Club holding continues to benefit from signs of increased demand for its cybersecurity offerings as the threat environment remains elevated. On March 30, for example, AT & T said that the telecommunications company was looking into a leak that resulted in millions of customers’ data getting published on the dark web. “Buy some Palo Alto on this,” Jim said after the high-profile cybersecurity incident. “We like that [stock.]” During the Club’s March Monthly Meeting, Jim told members that he’s tempted to add to our position if the stock falls under $280 per share — and we did just that April 8, picking up 25 shares around $268 each . EL YTD mountain Estee Lauder (EL) year-to-date performance Estee Lauder stock added 2.7% since the March Monthly Meeting, occupying the fourth spot on our list. Shares of the embattled cosmetics retailer have benefited from a slew of bullish Wall Street calls. On March 28, Bank of America upgraded the stock to a buy rating from hold, arguing Estee Lauder’s earnings have bottomed. The firm also raised its price target to $170 per share from $160. A few days later, Citigroup boosted the stock’s rating to buy from hold, adding that the company’s top line also is nearing an inflection point. On Thursday, we issued an upgrade of our own and added to our position that day , with the stock having essentially given up most of its post-earnings gains earlier in 2024. Estee Lauder remains a high-risk and volatile situation, but we’re hopeful that CEO Fabrizio Freda has finally righted the ship. Freda said during Estee Lauder’s most-recent earnings report that the company would return to profitability in the second half of the fiscal 2024 year. DHR YTD mountain Danaher (DHR) year-to-date performance Danaher rounds out the Club’s top performer’s list at No. 5 — and its 7.3% surge after earnings Tuesday is the reason for its inclusion. Overall, Danaher rose 1.7% since the March gathering The life sciences and diagnostics company posted earnings beats across its three main businesses. The results indicated the turnaround in the biotech industry has arrived, which should continue to support orders for Danaher’s offerings. “I have waited and waited and waited for this company to have the inflection, and this is the inflection,” Jim said Tuesday. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long GOOGL, WFC, PANW, EL, DHR. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. 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Stocks hit a rough patch after the Club’s March Monthly Meeting as Wall Street grappled with increasing odds of higher-for-longer interest rates.
