David Burrows, president and chief investment strategist at Barometer Capital Management

Focus: North American large caps
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MARKET OUTLOOK
Since February, economic data, price behaviour in the market and leadership have slowly been improving. We made new all-time highs in July [with the S&P 500]. The cyclicals that are leading the markets started to lead in June, signalling a transition from a market driven by interest rates to one driven by earnings. The groups that have been leading since then are the groups that led through the election period and then of course made new all-time highs again almost every day over the last few days.

At this point, the work that we do that looks at the internal behaviour in the market is showing steady improvement; there’s no deterioration, earnings growth is coming in a little ahead of expectation. And what you want to always look for in a strengthening market is low correlation, which means that stocks are behaving unlike one another — it’s not everything acting the same.

TOP PICKS

MORGAN STANLEY (MS.N)
Last bought at $44.64 on Feb. 10.

DOW CHEMICAL CO. (DOW.N)
Last bought at $60.54 on Feb. 10.

HOME DEPOT (HD.N)
Last bought at $138.72 on Feb. 9.
 

PAST PICKS: FEBRUARY 18, 2016

ALPHABET (GOOGL.O)

• Then: $697.35
• Now: $822.34
• Return: 17.92%
• TR: 17.92%

GENERAL ELECTRIC (GE.N)

• Then: $29.08
• Now: $29.97
• Return: 3.06%
• TR: 6.26%

SHERWIN-WILLIAMS (SHW.N)

• Then: $254.78
• Now: $254.78
• Return: 20.67%
• TR: 22.14%

TOTAL RETURN AVERAGE: 15.36%