Helene Meisler Takes a Technical Look at the Portfolio as 2023 Winds Down

We were pleased to welcome Action Alerts PLUS team member Helene Meisler on Wednesday's Members-Only Monthly Call, where she provided her technical take on the market and many of the portfolio's holdings. You can view a replay of the December Monthly Call here.

As a companion piece and addition to Wednesday's call, Helene here discusses her views on several portfolio holdings, Bullpen names and more in this Alert.

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Overall View

The market has run quite far and sentiment is leaning too giddy. I think the early part of 2024 will see a pick up in volatility and some downside action.

Most of the charts in the portfolio are at or near their highs. As someone who is a bottom picker these charts are hard to like and my inclination is to be taking something off the table in many of them as we get into year-end.

From the Portfolio

McDonald's

McDonald's (MCD) has had a huge bounce and is chewing into resistance now. I think this $290-300 area is going to be tough to get through on the first time up.

If MCD stock manages to fall into that $265-270 area in the first quarter I would think it is a buy again.

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PepsiCo

PepsiCo (PEP) is trying to make a bottom but it's still early. For the time being I think the stock is trapped between $160-175. But the longer it spends back and forth in that area, the more likely it will be that it forms a base to work its way higher.

That spike low in October looks to me as if it will turn out to be "the low area."

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Vulcan Materials

Vulcan Materials (VMC) would be a chart I like for the longer term if it can manage to map out something like I have drawn in blue below. The absolute prices aren't as much of a concern to me as the pattern. However, I would like to see it fail at the old highs ($225-235) and then come back down ($210-225 area would be great) and then rally again.

I would imagine such a pattern would give the chart a running start to get over the highs and would take 1-3 months to play out.

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XLE

I have been advocating to bottom fish in Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE) /energy  for about a week now. Sentiment is pretty bearish. Therefore this low $80s area looks good to me.

If I am wrong then I think $76 is very good support and where it should bounce from.

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Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin (LMT) is one of the more frustrating charts out there. Yet it continues to feel like it really does want to break out.

I don't want to see LMT stock crack under $440 and I would love to see it get up and over this $460 area.

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Elevance Health

Elevance Health (ELV) has been working on a base for a year now. I would love to see the stock at $440-450 to buy it.

Perhaps ELV needs the market to get oversold again in order to breakout and finally get going.

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Waste Management

Waste Management (WM) , the most recent addition to the portfolio, has a chart that hasn't done anything wrong but as a person who doesn't buy stocks that are up so much it is difficult to get revved up over this.

I have a measured target in this $173-175 area and one more around $185-188.

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From the Bullpen

Lab Corp. of America

I am opting to show you the chart of Laboratory Corporation Of America (LH) in its weekly form (three years) because the short-term chart looks vulnerable to a pullback. However, if I am correct about a first-quarter pullback and LH stock stays in this $200-220 range then sometime in the first quarter LH should be a buy for a move up and over that resistance line around $220 because by then it will have done enough back-and-forth work to eat through that resistance.

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Wendy's

Wendy's (WEN) is starting to shape up. I would love to see it map out akin to what I have drawn in blue. That would flesh out a base and help the chart with a good setup.

Perhaps WEN will show us in the first quarter where's the beef.

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At the time of publication,  Action Alerts PLUS was long MCD, PEP, VMC, XLE, LMT, ELV and WM.