CWS Market Review – March 8, 2022
“There are two kinds of people who lose money: those who know nothing, and those who know everything.” – Henry Kaufman
It’s Miller Time! After the bell on Wednesday, Miller Industries released its Q4 earnings, and Wall Street loved what the tow-truck maker had to say. Last quarter, Miller’s net income shot up 80%. The stock rallied nearly 11% in Thursday’s trading.
Shares of Miller have now doubled for us in 16 months. It amazes me that not a single Wall Street analyst follows this company. Miller also bumped up its quarterly dividend by a penny per share.
Since no one follows Miller, we can’t say if it beat expectations or not, but going by Thursday’s price action, I’ll say that it obviously beat somebody’s expectation. I’ll have all the details on Miller in just a bit.
The overall stock market reached another all-time high on Thursday. The S&P 500 is already up close to 8% this year, and it’s only March.
Part of the reason for the rally was due to reassuring remarks from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.
In his Congressional testimony this week, Chairman Powell reiterated his stance that the Fed isn’t ready to start cutting rates just yet. At the same time, Powell said that inflation has come down and that the Fed expects to cut rates at some point later this year. When that happens is up in the air. The market is betting on June, but that could change.
I also have some Buy List updates for you. We had several new 52-week highs on Thursday. Abbott Labs, Fiserv, ICE, Otis, Rollins, Stryker and Thermo Fisher all broke out to new records. Nine of our stocks are already up more than 12% this year. But first, let’s look at our final Buy List earnings report for Q4.