With Healthcare Vote Behind Us, Will Infrastructure Stocks Rock?

Mike Larson

Healthcare reform has paralyzed Washington for a couple of months now. But last Thursday, House Republicans cobbled together enough support to pass their American Health Care Act by a vote of 217-213. The bill is designed to reform and replace large portions of the Obamacare program.

The legislation now moves on to the Senate, where it will face Democratic opposition and could be reworked. But regardless of whether it sails through or gets derailed, the mere fact healthcare will no longer dominate the discussion in D.C. matters for the stock market. That’s because lawmakers can start shifting their focus to other parts of Donald Trump’s agenda – most notably, his tax and infrastructure plans.

Look, I’ve made no secret of my positive view on infrastructure stocks. Construction, engineering, and materials companies already had a rebounding global economy going for them in 2016. Then Trump won the election, sending shockwaves through the industry by pledging to spend mountains of money on bridges, roads, airports, pipelines, and more.

Many of the sector stocks I follow stalled out or pulled back in early-2017 due to all the focus on healthcare. But in the past several days, they’ve shifted into high-gear again.

Check out this ETF Screener called “Top Industrial & Infrastructure ETFs,” which I created using the advanced analysis tools available to Weiss Platinum subscribers (If you’re not on board yet, you can join by clicking here.  The screener includes all ETFs in the “Commodities, Industrial Metals” and “Industrials Sector Equity” sub-categories with Weiss Ratings of “C” (HOLD) or better, and it’s sorted in descending order by year-to-date returns.

Data Date: 5/4/17

You can see that as of late last week, many of these sector ETFs were either beating the return of the S&P 500 or running neck-in-neck with it. The SPDR S&P International Industrial Sector ETF (IPN, Rated “C”) topped the list with a return of 13.7%, while the First Trust Global Engineering and Construction ETF (FLM, Rated “C”) came in third at 9%.

Some individual names that I’ve zeroed in on as particularly promising are doing even better, especially when you look at their returns on a 1-year basis. I recently produced a comprehensive special report titled Rebuilding America: Six Top Stocks for Trump’s Trillion-Dollar Infrastructure Boom , and in that report, I made six specific recommendations.

One is a supplier of aggregates, concrete, and asphalt used in road building and construction that popped up on my radar screen a little while ago. It sports a solid “BUY” grade from our Weiss Ratings system, and just reported rock-solid earnings. Result: The shares jumped almost $17 in a single day last week, boosting its 1-year returns to more than 42%!

Another is a construction, engineering, building, and systems maintenance services firm in my sights reported 12% sales growth last year, and a 14% rise in profit from continuing operations. Its shares have been on fire, also surging 42% in the past 12 months!

Then there’s a smaller, lesser-known company that does electrical design, audio-visual wiring, and alarm and communications system installations. Sales soared 27% in the fourth quarter of last year, and its shares are up a whopping 53%.

I can’t share the names of those stocks here. That just wouldn’t be fair to investors who purchased the report. But if you’d like to get your hands on those picks — and the rest of the actionable, comprehensive investor intelligence the report contains — you can do by clicking here.

Not ready to take that step yet? Then just be sure to keep your eye on infrastructure names. They spent the early part of 2017 catching their breath. But with key healthcare discussions and votes behind us, they could be ready to sprint ahead again.

 

Until next time,

Mike

Mike Larson, Senior Analyst

Stocks & Sectors Edition, by Mike Larson, Senior Analyst

Mike Larson is a Senior Analyst for Weiss Ratings. A graduate of Boston University, Mike Larson formerly worked at Bankrate.com and Bloomberg News, and is regularly featured on CNBC, CNN, Fox Business News and Bloomberg Television as well as many national radio programs. Due to the astonishing accuracy of his forecasts and warnings, Mike Larson is often quoted by the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, As-sociated Press, Reuters, CNNMoney and many others.

About the Income & Dividend Analyst

In an era of high-risk exuberance, Mike Larson stands out as a leader in conservative investment strategies that outperform the market overall. Using the safety-oriented Weiss Ratings as a guide, he has a proven history of guiding investors to stocks and ETFs that provide asset protection, consistent dividends and excellent growth.

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