Market participants are anxious to put some money to work and are using optimism about diplomatic talks between Russia and Ukraine as an excuse. Breadth is very strong, with 6600 gains to 1500 decliners. New 12-month lows have contracted to around 100 after hitting over 1000 in recent days. Oil and precious metals have dropped sharply, and my list of speculative stocks moving up 10% or more is too long to count.
It is surprisingly strong action in view of the headline risk out of Ukraine in the next few days and also the likelihood of a very hot CPI number tomorrow morning. There is no shortage of potential landmines, but market players are having a hard time resisting some of the very good bargains that have developed.
What I like best about this sort of action is that stock pickers are hard at work trying to find good stocks that have been unfairly punished lately. Many stocks that have no real correlation to energy or Ukraine have been hit hard primarily due to a lack of liquidity.
I've been putting some money to work today, but I want to be in position to take advantage of another dip on a negative headline.
A few names I've added today include NIO (NIO) , Crocs (CROX) , Beauty Health (SKIN) , Origin Materials (ORGN) , Alto Ingredients (ALTO) , and Enthusiast Gaming (EGLX) . There are quite a few tempting stocks, but I'm going to continue to move incrementally and make sure I am in position to buy on another bad news selloff.
It is very refreshing to see much better stock-picking recently, but it is the macro selloffs that are the big danger if you are too long, too quickly.
