The S&P's 5 out of 500 - Leading Stocks for Jan. 6-10, 2025

 Happy New Year! I hope everyone's had a good holiday season.

Here are the top five leading stocks for last week. 

The reason this is important is because this blog focuses on momentum trading. Momentum trading believes that stocks that lead tend to keep leading and stocks that lag tend to keep lagging. There will be some exceptions, but this rule tends to stay true. In the case that it doesn't, exit out. Regardless of whether you momentum trade, this information is still valuable. At the very least, you'll have some stocks to consider. 

** These charts posted here are six-month charts 

The S&P's 5 out of 500

5.  $UAL    -     United Airlines Holdings

$UAL's been mentioned on the blog before; twice! (See Oct. 14-18, 2024 and Oct. 21-25, 2024). It looks like it's been steadily growing for these past few months since. 

What's United Airlines Holdings?

UAL owns and manages airlines. They manage commercial flights and cargo as well. (bloomberg.com)

Why'd it go up?

UAL has had a in general good year (businessinsider.com). Additionally, the airline industry has been doing well as of late, and the holiday season led to a rise in profit.

4.  $DAL    -     Delta Air Lines

It looks like airline stocks did really well this week.

What's Delta Air Lines?

DAL is an airline company that provides commercial and cargo flights.

Why'd it go up?

For the same reason as UAL! The holiday season helped a lot with profit margins, as well as strong Q4 earnings.

3.  $MU     -     Micron Technology

What's Micron Technologies?

Micron Technologies is a company that specializes in memory and storage technology. It also has a focus for memory solutions in AI.

Why'd it go up?

The uptick in AI demand and the strong Q4 earnings are reasons why Micron is starting to go up.

2.  $CEG     -     Constellation Energy

What's Constellation Energy?

CEG is a company dedicated to finding clear energy solutions.

Why'd it go up?

CEG recently made a move on acquiring Calpine, a leading natural gas and geothermal power generator (investors.com).

1.  $WBA     -     Walgreens Boots Alliance

This stock has also been mentioned on the blog a couple of times!

What's Walgreens Boots Alliance?

WBA operates retail stores, pharmacies, and healthcare services.

Why'd it go up?

The Q1 results as well as the strong turnaround plan they have seem to be good reasons to why their performance has excelled.

Our Blog Portfolio

This is where our portfolio was last post, on December 14th, 2022.

Brace for impact as I now reveal how it looks now. It is not pretty.

There are a two major reasons why the portfolio looks so egregious right now.

1. I am a student, and as a result of travel over winter break, I had not rooted out the badly performing stocks from week to week. Last week, I said that I'd get rid of the stagnant stocks in the portfolio, and now those stagnant stocks have lost money. This is probably a pretty good moral to keep in mind. 

2. The Fed is not likely to cut interest rates, leading to market volatility.  However, since uncertainties about the market have existed since it's beginnings, we have to learn to adapt and find opportunities regardless, even in less opportune markets.

I guess, in a way, it is fitting that we're going to refresh most of the portfolio for the new year.

Out with the bad, in with the good, right?

We're also going to be refreshing the color coding on the spreadsheet. 

Ta-da! Much cleaner now, in my opinion. Feel free to duke it out with me in the comments if you disagree. Any type of engagement with me is fantastic, considering I average 3-5 views per post (Thanks for being here, oraclehelp!!).

Here's how it looks now.

Update to the Format

We're getting rid of the "why'd it go up?" section. Most of the time, there isn't really a solid reason why things in the market happen, and if there is, it's the same thing for the most part. The quarter report came out, this breaking news just happened, this company's in the limelight, things like that. It's important to be well informed on the stocks your putting your money into, but it's redundant to have it here, and the information acts as helpful context, but it takes up time and space that would be better used on more helpful information. Information that will improve the ability to analyze stocks in the future. If you still want to know the why behind these things, I have high confidence in you and your ability to Google things. You can do this!

We're going to replace it with earnings growth and sales growth, both concepts that I will explain next post, so don't worry.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or criticism, leave it in the comments. I'd love to hear from all 2 (I'm pretty sure this is an overestimate) of you guys. Even if you are bots. 

See you next week!