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The bulls got what they wanted this week: cooler inflation data and record highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday closed above 40,000 for the first time, capping off a 1.24% advance for the week. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq Composite , meanwhile, closed at all-time highs Wednesday, fueled by cooler-than-expected inflation data released before the bell that day. The indexes had tame, but mixed moves over the final two trading days of the week; both finished Friday slightly below their Wednesday peaks. For the week, the S & P 500 added 1.54% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 2.1%. The market moved into extremely overbought territory during the week, forcing the Club to maintain our discipline. We trimmed our positions shares in Morgan Stanley and Palo Alto Networks on Wednesday and Thursay, respectively, after nice moves higher for both stocks. On the other hand, we bought additional shares of Estee Lauder on Tuesday after seeing some positive signs out of cosmetic retailer’s key China market. Here’s a closer look at what drove the moves in the portfolio’s top five stocks this week. PANW YTD mountain Palo Alto Networks (PANW) year-to-date performance Palo Alto Networks came in No. 1 for weekly gains, jumping 6.9% over the period. The cybersecurity stock had a particularly strong session Wednesday, adding 3.57%, after Morgan Stanley issued another upbeat note on the company ahead of its quarterly earnings report Monday night . The stock received an additional boost Thursday on news of a strengthening partnership with IBM , which would give Palo Alto access to a larger customer base. Palo Alto has been a sizable outperformer since early April, which factored into our trim Thursday. We remain bullish long term on Palo Alto. DHR YTD mountain Danaher (DHR) year-to-date performance Danaher advanced 4.9% in the week to secure a second-place finish. Shares are riding a four-session win streak, hitting a series of 52-week highs including on Friday. The stock is now trading at levels last seen in October 2021. The biggest catalyst this week was the company’s positive presentation Tuesday at a Bank of America health-care conference. CEO Rainer Blair reiterated what was said during a better-than-expected quarterly earnings report in April, with encouraging remarks around inventory destocking in its bioprocessing business. Danaher’s recent surge — up 11% over the past month — demonstrates the benefits of staying invested in a well-run company working its way through its inventory challenges. AVGO YTD mountain Broadcom’s (AVGO) year-to-date stock performance. Broadcom took the No. 3 spot, increasing 4.7% this week. Its strong performance included a record close Wednesday, at $1,436.17 per share. There wasn’t a single catalyst for Broadcom’s advance this week. But artificial intelligence-related announcements from ChatGPT maker OpenAI on Monday and later Google’s I/O developers conference likely fueled the chipmaker’s stock (more on Google in a…
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Read More: Apple, Alphabet among the Club’s top 5 performers in strong week for stocks
