S&P 500 Biotech Giant Vertex Leads 5 Stocks Showing Strength

Your stocks to watch for the week ahead are Cheniere Energy (LNG), S&P 500 biotech giant Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), Cardinal Health (CAH), Steel Dynamics (STLD) and Genuine Parts (GPC).

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While the market remains in correction, with analysts and investors wary of an economic downturn, these five stocks are worth adding to watchlists. S&P 500 medical giants Vertex and Cardinal Health have been holding up, as health-care related plays tend to do well in down markets.

Steel Dynamics and Genuine Parts are both coming off strong earnings as both the steel and auto parts industries report optimistic outlooks. Meanwhile, Cheniere Energy saw sales boom in the second quarter as demand in Europe for natural gas continues to grow.

Major indexes have been making rally attempts with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 testing weekly support on Friday. With market uncertainty, investors should be ready for follow-through day breakouts and keep an eye on these stocks.

Cheniere Energy, Cardinal Health and VRTX stock are all on IBD Leaderboard.

Cheniere Energy Stock
LNG shares rose 1.1% to 175.79 during Friday’s market trading. On the week, the stock advanced 3.1%, not from highs, bouncing from its 21-day and 10-week lines earlier in the week.

Cheniere Energy has been consolidating since mid-September, but needs another week to forge a proper base, with a potential 182.72 buy point formed on Aug. 10.

Houston-based Cheniere Energy was IBD Stock Of The Day on Thursday, as the largest U.S. producer of liquefied natural gas eyes strong demand in Europe.

Even though natural gas prices are plunging in the U.S. and Europe, investors still see strong LNG demand for Cheniere and others.

The U.K. government confirmed last week that it is in talks for an LNG purchase agreement with a number of companies, including Cheniere.

In the first half of 2021, less than 40% of Cheniere’s cargoes of LNG landed in Europe. That jumped to more than 70% through this year’s second quarter, even as the company ramped up new export capacity. The urgency of Europe’s natural gas shortage only intensified last month. That is when an explosion disabled the Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Russia that had once supplied 40% of the European Union’s natural gas.

In Q2, sales increased 165% to $8 billion and LNG earned $2.90 per share, up from a net loss of $1.30 per share in Q2 2021. The company will report Q3 earnings Nov. 3, with investors seeing booming profits for the next few quarters.

Cheniere Energy has a Composite Rating of 84. It has a 98 Relative Strength Rating, an exclusive IBD Stock Checkup gauge for share price movement with a 1 to 99 score. The rating shows how a stock’s performance over the last 52 weeks holds up against all the other stocks in IBD’s database. The EPS rating is 41.

Vertex Stock
VRTX stock jumped 3.4% to 300 on Friday, rebounding from a test of its 50-day moving average. Shares climbed 2.2% for the week. Vertex stock has formed a tight flat base with an official buy point of 306.05, according to MarketSmith analysis.

The stock has remained consistent over recent weeks, while the relative strength line has trended higher. The RS line tracks a stock’s performance vs. the S&P 500 index.

Vertex Q3 earnings are on due Oct. 27. Analysts see EPS edging up 1% to $3.61 per share with sales increasing 16% to $2.2 billion, according to FactSet.

The Boston-based global biotech company dominates the cystic fibrosis treatment market. Vertex also has other products in late-stage clinical development that target sickle cell disease, Type 1 diabetes and certain genetically caused kidney diseases. That includes a gene-editing partnership with Crispr Therapeutics (CRSP).

In early August, Vertex reported better-than-expected second-quarter results and raised full-year sales targets.

S&P 500 stock Vertex ranks second in the Medical-Biomed/Biotech industry group. VRTX has a 99 Composite Rating. Its Relative Strength Rating is 94 and its EPS Rating is 99.

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Cardinal Health Stock
CAH stock advanced 3.2% to 73.03 Friday, clearing a 71.22 buy point from a shallow cup-with-handle base and hitting a record high. But volume was light on the breakout. CAH stock leapt 7.3% for the week.

Cardinal Health stock’s relative strength line has also been trending up for months.

The cup-with-handle base is part of a base-on-base pattern, forming just above a cup base cleared on Aug. 11.

Cardinal Health, based in Dublin, Ohio, offers a wide assortment of health care services and medical supplies to hospitals, labs, pharmacies and long-term care facilities. The company reports that it serves around 90% of hospitals and 60,000 pharmacies in the U.S.

S&P 500 stock Cardinal Health will report Q1 2023 earnings on Nov. 4. Analysts forecast earnings falling 26% to 96 cents per share. Sales are expected to increase 10% to $48.3 billion, according to FactSet.

Cardinal Health stock ranks first in the Medical-Wholesale Drug/Supplies industry group, ahead of McKesson (MCK), which is also showing positive action. CAH stock has a 94 Composite Rating out of 99. It has a 97 Relative Strength Rating and an EPS rating of 73.

Steel Dynamics Stock
STLD shares shot up 8.5% to 92.92 on Friday and soared 19% on the week, coming off a Steel Dynamics earnings beat Wednesday night.

Shares blasted above an 88.72 consolidation buy point Friday after clearing a trendline Thursday. STLD stock is 17% above its 50-day line, definitely extended from that key average.

Steel Dynamics’ latest consolidation could be seen as part of a larger base going back six months.

Steel Dynamics topped Q3 earnings views with EPS rising 10% to $5.46 while revenue grew 11% to $5.65 billion. The steel producer’s outlook is optimistic despite weaker flat rolled steel pricing. STLD reports its order activity and backlogs remain solid.

The Fort Wayne, Indiana-based company is among the largest producers of carbon steel products in the U.S. It engages in metal recycling operations along with steel fabrication and produces myriad steel products.

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STLD stock ranks first in the Steel-Producers industry group. STLD stock has a 96 Composite Rating out of 99. It has a 90 Relative Strength Rating, an exclusive IBD Stock Checkup gauge for share-price movement that tops at 99. The rating shows how a stock’s performance over the last 52 weeks holds up against all the other stocks in IBD’s database. The EPS rating is 98.

Genuine Parts Stock
GPC stock gained 2.8% to 162.35 Friday after the company topped earnings views with its Q3 results on Thursday. For the week GPC advanced 5.1% as the stock held its 50-day line and is in a flat base.

GPC has an official 165.09 flat-base buy point after a three-week rally, according to MarketSmith analysis.

The relative strength line for Genuine Parts stock has rallied sharply to highs over the past several months.

On Thursday, the Atlanta-based auto parts company raised its full-year guidance on growth across its automotive and industrial sales.

Genuine Parts earnings per share advanced 19% to $2.23 and revenue grew 18% to $5.675 billion in Q3. GPC’s full-year guidance is now calling for EPS of $8.05-$8.15, up from $7.80-$7.95. The company now forecasts revenue growth of 15%-16%, up from the earlier 12%-14%.

During the Covid pandemic, supply chain constraints caused a major upheaval in the auto industry, sending prices for new and used cars to record levels. This has made consumers more likely to hang on to their existing vehicles for longer, driving mileage higher and boosting demand for auto replacement parts.

Fellow auto stocks O’Reilly Auto Parts (ORLY) and AutoZone (AZO) have also rallied near buy points amid the struggling market. O’Reilly reports on Oct. 26.

IBD ranks Genuine Parts first in the Retail/Wholesale-Auto Parts industry group. GPC stock has a 96 Composite Rating. Its Relative Strength Rating is 94 and it has an EPS Rating of 89.

Last Minute Travel And How To Find The Best Cheap Travel Deals

Sometimes if time is on your side the very best way to travel is Last Minute Travel. You can often find the very best cheap travel deals this way. Often you can find many such deals to even faraway places like Malaysia or Singapore or even some of your other dream locations. In fact more often than none the faraway places offer the best value for money when it is a last minute travel deal.Reasons Why Last minute travel deals are so good include:-

Because someone else has already paid for an expensive travel deal you can reap the rewards and even grab a bargain, because the travel company has already made their monies. The original buyer has canceled, thus the travel company no longer needs to make such a huge profit on the holiday as they have already made these profits from the original buyer. This is one of the ways you can grab great holidays at bargain prices.
You can often also benefit from holidays in 4 or even 5 star resorts, often at 2 star prices
There is also another very good reason why you would choose last minute travel over regular travel and this is because you can often get great travels deals to those far and away dream locations for small monies, that would usually only pay for a short stop holiday.
You can also usually get lots of extras thrown in for no extra monies like free transfers to and from the airports or even extra baggage allowances.
Disadvantages of Last minute travel include:-

You are limited to which hotels and resorts that you stay at due to the holiday usually being someone else’s booking.
Often the prices don’t include hidden costs including airport transfers and extra luggage costs
The dates are usually restrictive, because the holiday was previously booked for someone else’s timetable; these dates are not negotiable because they are the only ones available for the stated price.
Often the prices are based on 2 or 4 people sharing, Depending on how the original buyer booked their holiday will usually dictate on the board basis. Sometimes the prices stated are based on 2 people or even 4 people sharing and sometimes this can even be 6, however in this case they will usually allow the holiday to be split into 2 groups depending on how the accommodation was originally booked in the first place.
Even though Last Minute travel can sometimes be a little restrictive it can often be a very convenient and very cost effective way of traveling, as you can see above there are some very good reasons why people choose to travel at the very last minute, sometimes even booking the same day of travel. So if you are brave enough and you have a flexible holiday schedule at work or school why not try and book a holiday the last minute travel way and save yourself and your family a small fortune.

The Best Way to Break in a Brand New Baseball Glove

The glove is the ultimate defensive weapon of a fielder and although infielder and outfielder gloves are different in size, and the first base glove and catcher mitt is in a league of their own, there are certain basic methods for breaking a new glove in.There are many factors which affect the methods and quickness of breaking a glove in, such as quality of leather, softness and type of leather, web design and what the fielder feels they require in order to maximize its effectiveness.Although every one seems to have a secret formula, or knows someone who has a secret formula for breaking in a glove, we’ll explain the two most common methods in this article.The first method is of to follow the manufactures’ directions and follow their instructions, but for some reason we don’t think, that includes me most of the time, they know what they’re talking about.So we’ll proceed to the next method. The softness of the leather is directly associated with the cost of the glove, as a $500 glove will be much softer than a $100 glove. The reason I mention this is the first thing a player wants to achieve when breaking in a glove, is to create a pocket, which only use will accomplish, but the softness of the leather hastens the procedure.Here is a partial list of products which help soften leather, there are probably more, but these will suffice and are readily available.* Foaming Shave Cream
* Vaseline
* Saddle Soap
* Mink Oil
* Tanners Glove OilOne thing to be conscious of More is not always better, as some players will slop the oil all over the glove which only quickens deterioration and makes a slimy mess. Rather use a soft cloth and wipe small amounts of whatever leather softener you’re using into the leather until it disappears, then wipe off any excess which is not absorbed.Forming the pocket is the next step and there are several methods for accomplishing this. Playing catch, using the glove, is by far the best method to use, but sometimes it may be difficult to locate a throwing partner, which is why I include the following alternatives.* Use the batting cage. As the name indicates the original intended purpose of a batting cage is to help learn to hit, but it’s not the sole reason. There is nothing better than catching 50 – 100 70 mph fastballs to help form a pocket and do it quickly.* There is an old fashioned method, which is also effective in producing a pocket, and that is to work the leather softening agent into the leather, place a baseball (or softball if that’s your sport) into the pocket, fold the glove and tightly tie it together with a shoestring or rubber band. This may sound a little bit like baseball voodoo, but they do make devises specifically for this purpose.Remember, “more is not better” and use of the glove, no matter the grade of leather, will produce the desired results.