With temperatures across the country falling fast, Wall Street also cooled down. The three major indices closed down as investors played the waiting game on the FOMC’s monthly minutes, which get released later this week. Hm. There’s an old axiom that January sets the tone for the year in the stock market, and it’s mostly true. I saw one statistic that stocks performed for the full year as they did in the first month 73% of the time over the last 85 years. So should we be concerned that the first few days of trading in 2014 were lackluster?
Nope. It’s whole month that sets the tone, not just the first day. From where I’m standing, 2014 looks like it’s going to be another strong year. The positive forces that were in place on December 31, 2013 are still in place here in 2014.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that investors can just sit on their laurels. To make the most of the current market strength we’re seeing right now, I’ve drawn up a list of the latest high-profile upgrades and downgrades in Portfolio Grader. Let’s start with eight stocks that have been upgraded to buys this week:
Upgrades
Last Week’s Holds, Now Buys
| Symbol | Company Name | Quantitative Grade | Fundamental Grade |
| DIS | Walt Disney | B | C |
| EPD | Enterprise Products Partners | B | C |
| HD | The Home Depot | B | B |
| IR | Ingersoll-Rand Plc | B | C |
| MHK | Mohawk Industries | B | B |
| RYAAY | Ryanair Holdings | B | C |
| STT | State Street Corporation | B | C |
| V | Visa | B | B |
Last Week’s Sells, Now Holds
| Symbol | Company Name | Quantitative Grade | Fundamental Grade |
| AGN | Allergan | D | B |
| BK | The Bank of New York Mellon | D | C |
| TI | Telecom Italia S.p.A. | C | D |
Downgrades
Last Week’s Buys, Now Holds
| Symbol | Company Name | Quantitative Grade | Fundamental Grade |
| AFL | Aflac | C | C |
| BWA | BorgWarner | C | B |
| CNA | CNA Financial | C | B |
| FMS | Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. | C | C |
| INFY | Infosys Limited | C | B |
| MAT | Mattel | C | B |
| PAYX | Paychex | C | C |
| SIAL | Sigma-Aldrich | C | B |
| SNDK | SanDisk | C | A |
| SRE | Sempra Energy | C | C |
| TRI | Thomson Reuters | B | C |
Last Week’s Holds, Now Sells
| Symbol | Company Name | Quantitative Grade | Fundamental Grade |
| CLR | Continental Resources | D | B |
| CXO | Concho Resources | D | C |
| KLAC | KLA-Tencor | D | C |
| KRFT | Kraft Foods Group | D | C |
| KSU | Kansas City Southern | D | C |
| NTAP | NetApp | D | B |
| RAI | Reynolds American | D | C |
| SAN | Banco Santander | D | C |
| SYK | Stryker | D | C |
| TOT | Total SA | D | C |
| XOM | Exxon Mobil | D | C |
