Four of my favorite new charts from Charlie Bilello; Update on the six stocks I wrote about after the ICR conference; My favorite seat cushion

1) I hope to someday meet Charlie Bilello...

He's the chief market strategist at wealth-management firm Creative Planning. And I love his always-insightful weekly blog post: The Week in Charts.

As longtime readers know, I regularly include excerpts and charts from the blog in my daily e-mails.

This week's post, which Bilello released yesterday, didn't disappoint...

He starts by giving the latest example of how professional money managers (like individual investors) do exactly the wrong thing by being positioned defensively when stocks have fallen and aggressively after they've run up a lot.

Of course, this is exactly the opposite of what you need to do to be successful. Here's an excerpt from the post and the relevant chart on it:

Last October when the S&P 500 was trading at 4,100, active [managers] had less than 25% exposure to equities.

Fast forward to today with the S&P 500 over 1,000 points higher and active managers are all-in, moving their equity exposure above 104% (leveraged long).

This is the highest we've seen since November 2021.

2) Bilello then gives another example of investors doing the wrong thing, using the sentiment of investment newsletters, which was (wrongly) negative right at the bottom of the bear market in October 2022.

As a side note, I'm pleased to say that I bucked this trend. I was pounding the table in late 2022 that it was a fabulous time to be buying stocks – especially the tech giants, Meta Platforms (META) in particular.

Here's more from Bilello, along with the chart he included:

At the October 2022 Bear Market lows, newsletter Bulls were in short supply, with the Investors Intelligence survey registering just 25%.

Last week the percentage of Bulls moved above 60% for the first time since July 2022...

Today, I would say I'm somewhere in between the 60.9% who are bullish and 14.5% who are bearish.

I use the word "constructive" to characterize my outlook for the market over the balance of this year. Forced to translate this into a number with a five-point range, I'd guess (and it's no more than a guess!) that the S&P 500 Index will rise another 3% to 8% by the end of this year.

3) The last charts I want to highlight in Bilello's weekly post are, first, this one – with good news for American workers...

After a record 25 consecutive months of negative real wage growth, wages have now outpaced inflation on a [year-over-year] basis for 10 straight months. This is a great sign for the American worker that hopefully continues.

And then, this one – showing how investing in stocks for the long run offsets, by far, the decline in purchasing power due to inflation:

Over the last 30 years, the purchasing power of the US consumer dollar has been cut in half due to inflation. At the same time, the S&P 500 has gained 840% (7.8% per year) after adjusting for inflation. Why you need to invest, in one chart...

In his post from yesterday, Bilello also covers several other topics – including inflation, the "debt spiral," the bitcoin exchange-traded fund boom, Tesla's (TSLA) current drawdown, and median U.S. home prices.

I encourage you to check out the whole thing – again, you can see it right here.

4) In yesterday's e-mail, I shared my analysis of Jack in the Box (JACK) that I sent to my team here at Stansberry Research after I saw management present at the ICR conference, which took place in Orlando on January 8 and 9.

At the time, the stock looked like a hard pass to me. And as I said to my team then – and in yesterday's e-mail:

Like Denny's (DENN), Jack in the Box appears to be a no-growth business that was trying too hard to prop up the stock price with a big acquisition and debt-fueled share repurchases.

Shame on me for not sharing my thoughts with readers as well back in early January...

JACK shares closed on January 9 at $79.93. Since then, they have fallen 10.9% to close yesterday at $71.21... while the S&P 500 has risen 9.8% over the same time frame.

But earlier this year, I did write about six companies I saw at the conference – so I'll give a quick update on how each has done since then...

On January 9, I wrote about three of the 10 companies I had seen at the ICR conference the previous day:

• Shoemaker Crocs (CROX), which, even after its 20% jump on January 8, "looks like it has more room to run... as the market has been myopically focused on headwinds associated with the Hey Dude brand and is missing the big story that Crocs has been on an absolute tear..."

  The stock is up 39.8% since then.

• I wrote the following about Boot Barn (BOOT), the largest western and work-wear retailer in the U.S.: "BOOT shares look like a buy. Yesterday's announcement smelled like a bottom..."

  Since then, Boot Barn is up 21.5%.

• Lastly, I wrote that "I'm intrigued by beaten-up shoemaker Wolverine World Wide (WWW), which owns Merrell, Saucony, and a few other shoe brands... As with Crocs and Boot Barn, Wolverine's pre-announcement and stock rally yesterday smells like a bottom. If so, there's a lot of room for the stock to run...""

  WWW shares are up 15.6% since then.

The next day in my January 10 e-mail, I wrote about two more stocks:

• The Container Store (TCS), about which I concluded: "So this isn't a full-scale collapse like Bed Bath & Beyond was, but it's hard to see how management can turn this around. At the end of the day, I just don't think there's a reason for this business to exist... ""

  Since then, the stock has continued its collapse – it's down 42.9%.

• I was less bearish on Denny's, concluding: "So is Denny's a buy? No. I love franchise businesses... But if I'm going to pay 20 times earnings, I need to believe there's going to be growth – both in units and same-store sales. That said, the stock will likely do fine – just as Warren Buffett has no doubt done well with his Dairy Queen acquisition.""

  The stock is down 14.4% since then.

Lastly, in my January 26 e-mail, I wrote about Kura Sushi USA (KRUS), a revolving sushi bar restaurant concept imported from Japan.

After sharing my analysis, including photos and observations from my dinner at a Kura Sushi restaurant, I concluded:

So, is Kura the next differentiated ethnic food restaurant concept like Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) or yet another silly fad like Macheezmo Mouse (which really was a public company)?

I don't know – which is why I'm neither recommending it nor putting it on my list of stocks to avoid.

Kura is clearly a bad short: It's a unique concept run by experienced operators, so it could grow significantly from its small unit base and market cap today.

But the track record of richly valued restaurant concepts is abysmal, so I doubt I'm ever going to get comfortable with this stock...

Since January 26, Kura Sushi is up 18.7%.

Overall, I'm pleased that my instincts were largely correct on these stocks...

5) Continuing my series on my favorite travel items...

I never take a trip without this inflatable seat cushion ($38 on Amazon).

It's heavy-duty because it's designed for sitting on rocks when you're camping. And if you're like me, without a lot of natural cushioning, it's a butt-saver – I'm so much more comfortable when I have to sit for long periods of time (as I often do) at a sporting event or in a car, train, plane, etc.

Here's what it looks like:

Best regards,

Whitney

P.S. I welcome your feedback – send me an e-mail by clicking here.