Episode summary
3 Stocks for Your Wish List
Summary
The host argues that the recent sell-off, driven by Middle East war jitters, is too early to treat as a full buy-the-dip moment. With the S&P 500 only down about 3% for the year as of March 3rd, he says many individual stocks are already down far more, but he wants investors to build a wish list rather than rush in. His preferred setup is to wait for a deeper pullback, ideally 5% to 15%, before buying names with strong earnings momentum and rising estimates.
He highlights three stocks for that list: Caterpillar (CAT), Comfort Systems (FIX), and Eli Lilly (LLY). Caterpillar and Comfort Systems are framed as old-economy and AI-infrastructure beneficiaries with strong earnings growth, but both are still priced richly and have not pulled back enough. Eli Lilly is viewed as a potential replacement for the old Magnificent 7, with strong GLP-1 demand and improving estimates, but the host still wants the stock below 1,000 before getting more interested.
He closes by saying gold miners, energy, and small caps could all become more interesting if the conflict worsens, but for now he is sticking with stocks that have high Zacks ranks, rising estimates, and room for a better entry point.
Key takeaways
- The host says the current market pullback is not deep enough yet, and he prefers waiting for a larger decline before buying.
- Caterpillar (CAT) stays on the wish list because 2026 earnings growth is projected at 18.9% and 2027 growth at 21.6%, but the stock is still pricey.
- Comfort Systems (FIX) stands out as an AI infrastructure winner, with the host citing a huge fourth-quarter beat and sharply higher earnings estimates.
- Eli Lilly (LLY) remains attractive on GLP-1 growth, but the host wants a drop below 1,000 before becoming a buyer.
- The host says gold miners and energy may become more compelling if war-driven inflation or supply shocks intensify, but not yet.
Notable quotes
“I think you should be creating a wish list of the stocks that if we do have more of a pullback like we did last year for liberation day, then you can get them even cheaper”
“I still like the old economy trade”
“So, Caterpillar cat is on my wish list”
“if we were to see a 15% pullback in Nvidia, then I might be interested”
“it's been trading in between 1,000 and $1,100”
How the episode opens
Stocks, bonds, ETFs, straight out of downtown Chicago. This is Zach's Market Edge. Welcome to Zach's Market Edge, the podcast about investing in your life.
I'm your host, Tracy Rinick, and this week I'm going solo, as you can see on the video podcast, to talk about some stocks that might be on sale, or are they? We are getting a sell-off here on the what are we calling it Iranian war, Middle East war events in the Middle East. Uh we are getting some pullback in stocks and I know many of you are thinking is this a buying opportunity?
I've been asked a lot recently whether or not people should be buying the MAG7s. We've had a lot of the weakness in the software stocks as we've t talked about on this podcast a couple of weeks ago. that weakness continued and now we have this sell-off on the jitters about what might happen in the Middle East.
Now, we had the similar sell-off last year on Liberation Day, but it got much worse than this. as of this recording on March 3rd, we are only down about 3% on the S&P 500 for the year. But underlying that, some of these stocks are down 20, 30, even 40% and we know which ones those are.
Um, again, a lot of the software stocks, but also stocks like PayPal and some of those. So, um, it's been kind of a deceiving market because if you only owned the indexes, that looks a lot better even on the small and the midcaps than it did does on the individual stocks. But this sell-off seems to be uh sucking in most of the industries and sectors.
Even the gold miners are being hit here um to start March and gold itself has pulled back a little bit as well.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- stock selloff
- watchlist
- market favorites
- stock picks
Watch the episode
Watch “3 Stocks for Your Wish List” on YouTube
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