Wow, they are circling back. Circling back to the winners.
Look at the action with Domino's (DPZ). The darned thing is smoking hot. That's all the technology working in conjunction with a revitalization of domestic, in part because of easier financing for franchises, but also because of a peak in raw costs and share take from mom-and-pops who lack the tech that CEO Pat Doyle put into the business.
They are circling back to Nike (NKE), which reported that magnificent quarter but then somehow got buried underneath a heap of bad news and the Nike-specific news is sensational.
They are circling back to PepsiCo (PEP), which had the misfortune of reporting right into the vortex of bad geopolitical news. Remember, that's a consumer products story that's guided up earnings for two years now through constant innovation and cost takeout. Don't forget that Pepsi doesn't have to split up to win. It's winning now in advance of Coca-Cola's (KO) earnings tomorrow.
They are circling back to the cruise ship stocks now that the Ebola scare is muted. Notice I said muted because I am not going to be stupid enough to sound an all-clear.
But the rally in Royal (RCL) and Carnival (CCL) is pretty standout. People not testing positive for Ebola is good news for those who fear being on a ship, even as, again, I am sure the last few weeks' bookings are down. Guilty until proven innocent, but now much more difficult shorts.
They are circling back to Costco (COST), which had fantastic same-store sales numbers, but they meant very little at a time when we thought if we go out we might catch something. Again, we just might, but the people who surrounded the sad single fatality of Ebola, a victim of a hospital that now admits it did things wrong, didn't get the horrid disease, so maybe we won't if we taste free samples at Costco.
They are circling back to Marriott (MAR) and the other hotel chains as travel fears subside. No, they don't go away. And I am sure revenue per room is not as good as the company would like. But the discount is too good.
They are circling back to Delta (DAL) with that standout quarter and presuming that Southwest (LUV) has the same.
They are circling back to Disney (DIS), which has a franchise you can't afford to cut the cord for -- sports. Notice CBS (CBS) isn't giving you the NFL. ESPN's not giving you ESPN 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or whatever we pay for. At the same time, the fatuous downgrade that I talked about last week, the one that I thought was a thinly-veiled Ebola worry trade, seems to have proven to be, well, fatuous.
And they are circling back to Chipotle (CMG) ahead of earnings, a real gutsy move but one that's undeniable.
Reward, they are betting, exceeds the risks of stocks hammered already.
At the same time they are willing to isolate the issues of the day.
Sure, IBM's (IBM) terrible. But what does that have to do with the price of Salesforce.com (CRM), which got the cloud right, not wrong. The comebacks in Oracle (ORCL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) aren't anything to sniff at either.
NCR's (NCR) abysmal. But don't shoot rival Diebold (DBD). The latter's doing a lot of good things that no one seems to care about, but they will.
You know what today is? Positive pin action day for the winners and negative pin action for the losers. That's what you need if you are going to believe that the bottom I flagged Friday is for real. Plenty of time left. Plenty of earnings-per-share days ahead. But I reiterate we are in a better place than we were a week ago. And that's all that matters if you are circling back to what worked that you tucked away and are now feasting on.
