Danaher continues its post-Covid reset–now is the time to buy future growth

Danaher continues its post-Covid reset–now is the time to buy future growth

The comparisons with 2022 continue to hurt shares of Danaher (DHR). For the second quarter, reported yesterday, the company saw revenue down 8% and adjusted earnings per share off 26% year over year. The culprit is easy to see. But I continue to hold Danaher in my Jubak Picks Portfolio where the position, initiated on June 20, 2017, was up 198.3% as of the close on July 25. Tomorrow July 26, I’ll be adding these shares to my long-term 50 Stocks portfolio. Danaher is one way to play the growth of the drug sector and the need of these companies for pure water.

Please WatchMy New YouTube Video: Quick Pick Eli Lilly

Please WatchMy New YouTube Video: Quick Pick Eli Lilly

This week’s Quick Pick is Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY). The worldwide explosion in diabetes has increased the demand for medicine to prevent the illness from advancing from Type 2 to Type 1 diabetes. In developing these drugs, it’s become clear these Type 2 diabetes prescriptions have also excellent potential for weight loss. Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide drug, the market leader,  has been FDA approved for both uses and is marketed as Ozempic for diabetes and Wegovy for weight loss. Eli Lilly’s competitor drug, Mounjaro, is already approved by the FDA for Type 2 diabetes. That drug is likely to be approved for weight loss as well and looks like it may work even better than Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy. illy’s second diabetes drug, Retatrutide, is still in the pipeline and just reported Phase clinical results showed a 24% loss of body weight after 11 months. Th drug  still has to go into Phase III trials but it is likely to be approved. Lilly’s stock has a 1% yield and is trading at a trailing 12 month PE of 72, so this stock is not cheap. I’ve had this stock in my Jubak Picks portfolio since November 20, 2022 and it’s up about 34% since then, but I believe we can expect another 20% to the upside with the approval of their drugs in the pipeline. The relatively low risk with a likely 20% return makes this a very attractive stock to me.

10 Stocks for the AI Gold Rush–and WHY these picks

10 Stocks for the AI Gold Rush–and WHY these picks

Artificial intelligence really is a paradigm-breaking, transformative technology. Right now, investors are so enthusiastic about the sector, especially the obvious leader Nvidia (NVDA), that we’re looking at a potential bubble that will collapse with much gnashing of teeth and I-told-you-so “wisdom” casting doubt on the reality of the entire endeavor. I think a bubble is indeed possible. Nvidia did trade at a trailing twelve-month price-to-earnings ratio of 196 on May 31, after all. But I think you do want to own the sector now–because the breaking of the bubble, if it does break is, in my opinion, two quarters or more away. And you want to own the sector for the long run–say, 10 years or more–because it is such a game changer for so much of the economy. But what to own? I’ve put together a list of the 10 stocks that I think are the best way to participate in the AI gold rush.

Watch My New YouTube Video: Quick Pick Newmont

Watch My New YouTube Video: Quick Pick Newmont

Today’s Quick Pick is Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM). Newmont is the world’s largest gold miner but the stock hasn’t benefited very much from the recent rallies in gold. Unlike Barrick Gold, Newmont is not a low-cost miner, but it does have huge reserves as well as promising joint ventures–including one with Barrick in Nevada. The company is growing production and produced about 2.2 million ounces of gold in 2022, with production going up to a forecasted 2.7 million by 2027. Newmont likely hasn’t seen a huge rally yet because of the cost of energy. Mining gold takes a lot of energy and with recently higher gas/diesel prices, costs of mining and production have gone up and margins have been squeezed. However, looking forward to mid or late 2023, those margins will, in my opinion, start to look a lot better. If we hit a recession while inflation remains relatively high and energy prices come down, Newmont will benefit from lower costs and recession gold rallies. I would call Newmont my second choice gold stock to Barrick. Morningstar rates Newmont at 10% undervalued right now. This is a good time to buy and look for it to outperform in the second half of 2023.

Please Watch My New YouTube video: Quick Pick Moderna

Please Watch My New YouTube video: Quick Pick Moderna

Today’s Quick Pick is Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA). You’re familiar with Moderna as the developer of one of the RNA-Covid vaccines. The stock market has been treating the stock like the company was a one-trick pony with sales dependent totally on the demand for Covid-19 vaccines. But I think of the MRNA Covid-19 vaccine as proof of the validity of Moderna’s technology platform which takes a lot of the risk out of what is still an early-stage biotech stock. The company now has 36 other vaccines in its development pipeline using the mRNA technology that was proven effective in the Covid vaccines. Around six of those are expected to launch in the next few years. The huge jump in revenue from the Covid vaccines “shot” the stock up around 900%. (The company’s revenue was $155 million in 2018, and at the end of 2022 its revenue was $19.3 billion.) But more recently, the shares have been in a steep decline and Morningstar now calls them 40% undervalued. The stock has pulled back further in the last week or so on news that results from some trials have not been positive enough to lead to early termination of the trials. The huge revenue–and the resulting profitability–from the Covid-19 vaccines put Moderna in a unique position for such a young biotech company. They’re able to fund their own research, clinical trials, and the development of new products internally. That means the company doesn’t have to sell off a share of future profits and revenue on new drugs or vaccines in order to fund research and development. I’ll be adding the stock to my Jubak Picks portfolio tomorrow, April 14.

Bookkeeping: I added NVDA, MSFT, and Adobe to my Volatility Portfolio on March 24

Bookkeeping: I added NVDA, MSFT, and Adobe to my Volatility Portfolio on March 24

In Step #3 of my Special Report: 5 Moves for the Next 5 Months, on March 24 I added three Big Tech stocks–Microsoft (MSFT), Adobe (ADBE), and Nvidia (NVDA) to my Volatility Portfolio ahead of earnings season. My theory, explained in that post was that we were facing a tough earnings season for most stocks and that reliable earnings growth from Big Tech would make those stocks look like a safe haven in a period when the Standard & Poor’s 500 as a whole was projected to show a drop in earnings. (I also owned up to my mistake in selling Nvidia back on February 16. That was just wrong. More on why I was wrong and why I’ve changed my mind on that in a post tomorrow or so.)

Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Quick Pick Barrick Gold

Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Quick Pick Barrick Gold

Today’s Quick Pick is Barrick Gold (NYSE: GOLD). There are three big arguments for owning gold, and Barrick Gold specifically, right now. Number one is that gold always does well when the markets are volatile and people are unsure where else to put their money. Gold is the safe haven. Second, if the Fed pauses rates, gold will be back on the upswing. Gold generally doesn’t pay dividends, so if interest rates are higher, people will put their money where they can get a return through dividends (not gold), but as the rate hikes stop, gold will become more attractive. The third reason is specific to Barrick Gold because although it’s a gold mining company, it gets about 18% of its revenue from the copper it mines alongside the gold. The market for copper has been growing with the renewable energy transition. Electric vehicles use massive amounts of copper and copper miners haven’t been investing to keep up with future demand. Year to date (as of March 10), Barrick was down about 6.81% and Morningstar calculates it as 24% undervalued. While I mentioned that most gold stocks don’t pay a dividend, Barrick actually does, at about 3.23%, and they just announced another $1 million stock buyback. As the turmoil in the market continues, Barrick will continue to go up as people look for a safe haven from the chaos.

Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Voter Suppression…in China

Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Voter Suppression…in China

This week’s Trend of the Week is Voter Suppression…in China. During the most recent National People’s Congress in China, two people were notably not invited–entrepreneurs Tony and Pony Ma, the heads of Alibaba and Tencent. Other entrepreneurs were also notable for their absence. Xi Jinping has made it clear that entrepreneurs have a much smaller role in his economy going forward, as he looks to consolidate power in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party and prevent any potential competition from power centers. Xi’s new policies, coming out of the National People’s Congress, focus on spending by state-run businesses and emphasize consumer spending, as opposed to infrastructure, as a source of economic stimulus. So how should you invest in China? Despite Pony Ma’s absence at the People’s Congress, Tencent Holdings (OTCMKTS: TCEHY) remains at the forefront of Chinese innovation and technology. It’s clear that China will not adopt US-made chatbots and will develop its own. Tencent looks likely to take a leading role in that effort. The company is also the dominant game producer in the world and gets a lot of its revenue from outside of China. It’s the China stock I’d look at for the long term. In the short term, I’d look at JD.com, which is well-suited to get a bounce from the emphasis on consumer spending. The current price is a good entry point. I’ll be adding it to my JubakPicks.com portfolio tomorrow.