The month of May brought a solid turnaround in the stock market… a much needed one after a couple of down months.

Information Technology stocks led the rebound, with the Magnificent 7 performing well.  The S&P 500 was up nearly 10% over the past month.

Most S&P 500 sectors (8 of 11) managed to end in the green for the month.  However, the Healthcare sector was a noticeable laggard, declining over 3.5%.  Consumer Staples and Energy were slightly negative as well.

We survived earnings season this time around and will brace for more volatility a couple of months from now.  In the meantime, I’m sure there will be plenty of tariff-related news, inflation reports, and interest rate talk to move the market.

Other than a pair of minor moves, my Portfolio activity was muted in May.  Despite the indices approaching their previous highs from earlier this year, there still appear to be some bargains, so I’ll make sure I’ve got a few purchase candidates scoped out.

Year-to-Date (YTD), the S&P 500 is down slightly.  Five of the eleven S&P 500 sectors are in the red, including: Consumer Discretionary, Healthcare, Energy, Information Technology and Real Estate.

Alright, let’s get on with it.  I’ll be covering my standard items in this month’s Portfolio Thoughts post…

• Price Movement – I’ll look at my top advancers and decliners in my Portfolio during the past month.
• Top 10 Review – I’ll update my Top 10 Portfolios stocks and how they changed rank this past month.
• Weightings – I’ll examine the sector weightings within my Portfolio and let you know where I’ve made progress with regard to getting into my preferred weighting ranges.
• Watch List – I’ll share which stocks I’m looking at as I prepare to invest my capital in the coming months.

Here are my Portfolio Thoughts for May 2025…

 

Price Movement

Note – my price changes cover closing prices from 4/25/25 to 5/23/25.

A nice advance in the stock market this month translated to a nice bump in my Portfolio value for May.  My ratio of stock gains to stock declines was just a tad better than 2:1.  That’s what I like to see!  Of my 59 holdings, 40 rose in price, while the remaining 19 retreated.  I had one big gainer & decliner, but outside of those two, most of the large moves were to the upside… thankfully!

Here were the stocks with the biggest moves to the upside and downside…

 

Of my 40 stocks that rose in price in May, I had one gain more than 20%.  This is the first time in 4 months that has occurred for any of my stocks.  On top of that, I had an impressive 9 stocks with at least a 10% gain (the usual threshold I monitor for).  Finally, add another 10 stocks that advanced at least 5%.  That makes 50% of my 40 gainers having a gain of 5% or more.  This was a welcomed rebound after a couple of rough months.

My top gainers in May were:

• The Walt Disney Co. (DIS), surging 21.53%
• Broadcom (AVGO), jumping 18.93%
• Intuit (INTU), popping 15.38%
• Microsoft (MSFT), advancing 14.89%
• Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), rising 12.79%

 

It’s easy to see that my top gainers list is littered with stocks from the Information Technology sector (4 out of 5).  However, it was a Communication Services stock (DIS) that claimed the top spot.  The gain for DIS broke a streak of 3 straight months of declines.

AVGO and INTU made repeat appearances on my top gainers list this month.  AVGO went from 1st in April to 2nd in May, while INTU went from 5th to 3rd.  AVGO has certainly been a volatile stock in 2025.  INTU has climbed in each of the 3 months I’ve held the stock.

MSFT has risen almost 20% in the past couple of months, reaching a new high for the year.  Meanwhile, May provided the first monthly gain for SWKS in 2025 – it’s been a rough year so far.

Note – 3 sectors in my Portfolio had all their holdings in the green this month: Consumer Discretionary (3), Materials (3) & Utilities (3).  Four other sectors were close, with just one their stocks in the red.

 

Of my 19 stocks that fell in price, one stood out like a sore thumb, as it lost more than 20%.  Outside of that stock, none fell by more than 10%, which was nice.  Yet, there was some downward movement, as 3 stocks recorded losses of more than 5%.  All in all, losses were well contained in May.

My worst decliners in May were…

• UnitedHealth Group (UNH), plummeting 29.40%
• Flowers Foods (FLO), dropping 7.68%
• Merck & Co. (MRK), sinking 6.24%
• Aflac (AFL), retreating 5.01%
• Hershey Co. (HSY), declining 4.86%

 

My top decliners included a couple of names from the Healthcare sector in UNH and MRK, but were otherwise scattered across various sectors.

UNH topped my worst decliners list for a 2nd consecutive month… not a good place to be!  Its loss approached 30% for the month, which was on top of the nearly 20% haircut it took in April… Ouch!  On top of all the bad items I noted last month, this month’s issues were: CEO departure, a potential criminal investigation, and a major cyberattack on its Change Healthcare unit.

The poor performance for FLO continued this month.  The stock has declined in each of the 3 months I’ve held the stock.  The current weak demand in the traditional bread categories have hurt the stock, as has tariff-related cost inflation.

MRK has fallen for 10 straight months now… Wow!  In that time the price has declined from ~$125 to ~$77.  I would have to think the end of the drop could be near.

AFL has been trading in the $100-$110 range for most of the year, but after its retreat in May (with disappointing earnings being a factor), it sits closer to the bottom of that range.

The big rebound HSY experienced in February has all evaporated with 3 consecutive declining months.  The stock is looking interesting to me… but is it too soon to buy more?

Note – 2 sectors in my Portfolio had all their holdings in the red this month: Healthcare (8) and Energy (2).  It was an across-the-board drop in prices in Healthcare in May.  None of my Healthcare holdings were immune.  🙂

 

Top 10 Review

After 7 months in a row with the same stocks in my Top 10, I have a new stock making an appearance.  This new Top 10 stock hasn’t surged in 2025, but it held up better than the stock that fell out of my Top 10.  You’ll find out which stocks these were in just a bit.

There weren’t any big movers in my Top 10 in May, as the most a stock moved was up or down one spot in the rankings.

Ignoring the new stock in the Top 10, I had 3 pairs of stocks swap places, which left 3 stocks holding their respective positions.

Seven of my Top 10 finished with gains in May.  The three stocks to the downside were led by Aflac (AFL), which as you saw earlier was part of my top decliners list this month.

With a big upside month, AVGO easily holds down my #1 spot.  The Portfolio weighting for AVGO is growing again and is close to being twice the size of my #2 holding.  Speaking of #2, that ranking was retained by AFL, despite its decline in May.

My next 6 spots in the Top 10 belong to the 3 pairs of stocks that swapped places in the rankings.  Visa (V) traded spots with Qualcomm (QCOM).  It was V moving up to #3 and QCOM sliding down to #4.  Meanwhile, RPM International (RPM) climbed a spot to #5 as AbbVie (ABBV) slipped a spot to #6.  Lastly, BlackRock (BLK) managed to rise one spot to #7 at the expense of Fastenal (FAST) which fell a spot to #8.

Procter & Gamble (PG) held steady in the #9 spot when May came to an end.  PG managed a 3% gain this month, which was the top gainer out of all of my Consumer Staples holdings.

The stock that tumbled out of my Top 10 in May was Lowe’s Companies (LOW).  After 3 straight monthly losses, LOW was essentially flat this month, but that couldn’t keep it in the Top 10 when most other stocks in my Portfolio were advancing.

Replacing LOW in my Top 10 was JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM).  JPM has been in my Top 10 before, but it’s been a long while… years I think.  The stock has been threatening to crack the Top 10 in most months in 2025, but couldn’t get it done… until now.  JPM makes it 4 stocks from the Financials sector in my Top 10.

 

 

LOW could easily get back into the Top 10 by next month as it’s hovering just below JPM in my rankings at this point.  There aren’t any other stocks that I would say have a realistic chance to move into the Top 10 unless something abnormal occurs.  Nexstar Media Group (NXST) and Union Pacific (UNP) are the two stocks with an outside shot.

 

From the table above, my Top 10 holdings now comprise 41.66% of my Portfolio value.  This is an increase of 0.47 percentage points compared to last month.  Once again, a big share price gain by AVGO did most of the work in increasing the weighting of the Top 10.

As for the dividend weighting of my Top 10, it finished the month at 28.42%.  This is an increase of 0.06 percentage points compared to last month.  The JPM replacement of LOW accounted for the majority of this dividend weighting increase.

 

Weightings

 

In general, for the Sector Diversification, I target being within +/-3 percentage points of the sector weightings of the S&P 500.  For the SuperSector Diversification, I target being within +/-5 percentage points.

The “Weight Diff.” column shows which sectors sit outside my preferred weighting ranges.  If I’m overweight a sector, it’s shaded green.  If I’m underweight a sector, it’s shaded red.  If I’m within my target weighting range, then no shading exists.

For a 2nd straight month, there was no change to the number of sectors I had that were outside of my preferred weighting range.  I still have 3 overweight sectors (Industrials, Financials & Materials) and 2 underweight sectors (Information Technology and Consumer Discretionary).

With regard to the overweight sectors, I got further away from my preferred weighting range in Materials due to my out-performance in that sector relative to the index.  That’s acceptable.  However, in Financials & Industrials, while I got closer to from my preferred weighting ranges, it was due to the under-performance of my holdings in those sectors compared to the index.

As for the underweight sectors, I’m worse off again in Consumer Discretionary due to the poor performance from my three holdings in that sector relative to the index.   At least Nike (NKE) posted a decent 4% gain in May.  As for getting into my preferred weighting range in Information Technology, the big month from AVGO drove me in the right direction, reducing the gap I need to fill.  However, there’s a long way to go before Info Tech is in my preferred weighting range, so I won’t get too excited.

Information Technology is now more than 21% of my Portfolio, pulling away from Financials, which comprise a little over 18%.  Industrials are close to a 16% weighting now, distancing itself from the 12% number that Healthcare has after a really bad month of May.  Energy still has the smallest weighting in my Portfolio, but only by a fraction of a percentage point compared to Real Estate.

Four sectors still compete to be the top one providing dividend income for my Portfolio.  They all provide between a 12% and 16.5% dividend weighting.  Healthcare has maintained the top position for a while now, but it’s not a big lead.  As for the sectors providing me with the least amount of dividend income, I’ve got four sectors there, too, all with a dividend weighting in the 4% to 5% range.  Similar to the Portfolio weighting, it’s Energy trying to chase down Real Estate to avoid being the smallest.  I’ve got an inkling to add to one of my Energy holdings while it looks to be depressed in price.  That could move Energy out of that bottom spot.

 

As always, I’ll keep all my sector weightings in mind as I continue to adjust my Portfolio, and my watchlist.

 

Watch List

I was hands-off my Portfolio for the most part in May.  There was a single-share sale, and also a minor buy from my watchlist, but otherwise it was quiet.

What were my moves?  Well, I trimmed one of my Microsoft (MSFT) shares and bought a couple UnitedHealth Group (UNH) shares.  Needless to say I was early on my UNH buy as that stock tanked this past month, then tanked some more after I bought.

Certain sectors have had their stocks appreciate nicely over the past month, while others have had their stocks fail to participate in the rally.  Thus, there are some decent values out in the market, so stay vigilant and keep working to find them.

 

Within my Portfolio, here are a few stocks that I’m watching for possible additions…

FedEx (FDX) rallied some, above the $210 it was trading at this time last month.  I still want to have this stock grow in my Portfolio a bit, at least above a 0.5% Portfolio weighting.  So, I keep watching and hoping for a dip below $210, but more preferably $200.

NextEra Energy (NEE) jumped higher in May, only to give up all the gains.  Last month I was looking for a price in the mid $60s, and at the current $67 it’s not far away.

I thought Chevron (CVX) was trading slightly undervalued at $136 last month.  It’s right there again this month.  I’ll look for a drop into the low $130s and see if I can add some shares at that level.

Last month I was looking for UNH to drop below $410.  When it did, I added a couple of shares at $387 (my lone buy last month).  Unfortunately for me, more bad news was coming and the stock continued to drop… all the way below $300!  Given all the uncertainty around the stock these days, I’m tempted to wait for some price stability before adding more.  However, maybe I won’t be that patient.

Pepsico (PEP) is hovering just above my $130 target.  I talked about a small share addition at that level.  The stock actually crossed below that level during the past month, but I didn’t act.  Perhaps I take care of that in June.

Another Consumer Staples stock that I’ve got an eye on is Hershey Co. (HSY).  The stock is certainly out of favor right now.  However, I could be inclined to add a few shares to my position with a decline below $150.  The stock currently trades around $155.

With my retirement on the horizon, I might end up purging a handful of stocks to raise some cash.  My smallest holdings, such as American Tower (AMT), Flowers Food (FLO), and even FDX (if I don’t make the position larger) could be on the chopping block as a result.  Some larger and mid-sized positions that I might purge include T. Rowe Price (TROW), SWKS, Omnicom Group (OMC), Comcast (CMCSA), Eastman Chemical (EMN) and even HSY.

 

As for non-Portfolio stocks that I’m watching…

Zoetis (ZTS) dipped below my $150 target just briefly in May, but I wasn’t paying close enough attention to sneak in a buy.  As I’d noted last month, I wasn’t dying to buy at that price anyway.  However, now the stock has risen to around $165.  So, no entry is imminent.  But, I’ll keep watching it, as another opportunity may arise given that the market has moved significantly up and down over the past few months.  If I do end up selling some holdings to raise cash, as outlined above, then adding new stocks to my Portfolio will fall down my priority list.

 

Thoughts?

Do you think stocks are poised to move higher despite all the stock market uncertainty?  Or are you stockpiling cash in anticipation of another market pullback?  Please share your thoughts!