The United States economy is full of innovation. It has to be. Manufacturing industries that dominated the economy decades ago - textiles, televisions, even automobiles to a large degree - have moved overseas, where labor and materials costs are lower. Yet the U.S. economy, even during the pandemic and the current period of high inflation, has expanded to record levels. If U.S. corporations weren't innovating, creating new products (such as vaccines and AI) and services (such as Zoom calls) and moving into new markets, the domestic economy would not be growing, and capital would not be flooding into the country. The current high level of the U.S. dollar relative to currencies around the world attests to the confidence that global investors have in the durable and innovative U.S. economy.

The Portfolio Selector features the Argus Focus List, a group of 30 "best idea" stocks generated and regularly updated by Argus' analysts and investment policy committee. It also includes the director of research’s monthly investment strategy column, stock recommendations and sector picks, economic forecasts, and an asset allocation model. This month, the Focus List additions are Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT); TJX Companies, Inc. (TJX); GE HealthCare Technologies Inc (GEHC); Campbell Soup Co. (CPB) and the Focus List deletions are Dominos Pizza Inc (DPZ); Labcorp Holdings Inc. (LH); Mondelez International Inc. (MDLZ); Oracle Corp. (ORCL).

Mega-cap stocks came back on Tuesday, at least for a day, while small- and mid-cap issues took the day off. It was definitely a risk-on day, as Information Technology (XLK) popped 2%, Consumer Discretionary (XLY) and Communications Services (XLY) added 1%, and Financials rose 0.7%. Energy (XLE) was smacked, off 2.6% as WTI fell over 4% after its recent run. The S&P 500 gained 1% and is less than 10 points away from another 2024 all-time closing high. The Nasdaq rose 1.5%, while the Nasdaq 100 was up 1.6%. But as if often the case, looking under the hood tells the real story. Technology was led by a few major semiconductors, including NVDA (+4%) and AVGO (+3%). NVDA has been tracing out a bullish continuous inverse head-and-shoulders, while AVGO has been forming a complex double bottom since the middle of June. Both are very close to completing these patterns and possibly breaking out to all-time highs. One concern about jumping back on the semi train is that we are not seeing other stocks completing bases and many are nowhere near highs. That can be rectified, but the strongest industry moves occur when the majority of stocks are participating. The other area of IT that showed strength was software, including some cloud stocks. ORCL (+2.6%) has broken out to all-time highs, while CRM (+2.5%) has rallied nicely over the past month and is nearing its March 2024 all-time high. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software ETF (IGV) rose over 2% and recently broke to all-time highs after tracing out a massive base that started in late 2021. The Amplify Cybersecurity ETF (HACK) has also hit all-time highs. (Mark Arbeter, CMT)

Oracle Corp. is one of the world's largest independent enterprise software companies, with annual revenues over $53 billion. Its software products include database, middleware, application, and cloud-based software designed for general business purposes and for specific industries. In addition, Oracle provides product upgrades, maintenance releases, and patches through license update agreements, as well as extensive product support. Oracle also provides server hardware. It expanded its presence in the healthcare market with the Cerner acquisition in 2022. The company has about 160,000 employees. About 37% of revenue comes from outside the Americas region.