The stock market took a turn for the worse in March. The conflict with Iran that begun on the last day of February has heightened risks in the Middle East, driven up energy prices, raised investor uncertainty, and escalated inflation concerns.
Note – the monthly percentages noted below are through 3/23/26.
The S&P 500 is down almost 5% over the past month. Only the Energy sector has been in the green over that time. All sectors outside of Energy are down at least 3% over the past month, with the worst being Materials, which is down a little over 10%.
Despite the recent downturn, my Portfolio has held up fairly well year-to-date (YTD), as it’s more conservative than the S&P 500. My Portfolio is down about 1.67% YTD, while the S&P 500 is down closer to 4% with its dividends reinvested.
Over the past month, all of my Top 10 holdings were in the red. I can’t recall the last time that happened.
Here’s hoping the conflict comes to an end soon, and a return to market normalcy returns 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 Portfolio 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 for possible purchase or sale in the event I decide to shuffle up my holdings.
Here are my Portfolio Thoughts for March 2026…
Price Movement
Note – my price changes cover closing prices from 2/25/26 to 3/23/26.
After a couple of nice months to open 2026, March has wiped out all the gains, and then some. My Portfolio could not weather the storm and followed the stock market down. The gainer/decliner ratio was an abysmal 1:8.5 in March. Of my 57 holdings, a measly 6 advanced in price, while the remaining 51 declined. That’s about as bad as it’s ever been for a single month. Over two-thirds of my decliners fell by more than 5%, too… ouch.
Here were the stocks with the biggest moves to the upside and downside…
Of my 6 stocks that rose in price in March, none moved higher by more than 20% – to be expected in a month like this. However, two stocks notched a gain north of 10% (the usual threshold I monitor for). Surprisingly, no other stocks managed to gain at least 5%. It was a month to forget, for sure.
My top gainers in March were:
- Intuit (INTU), surging 19.88%
- Chevron (CVX), popping 11.39%
- Accenture (ACN), rising 4.45%
- Enbridge (ENB), advancing 3.34%
- Verizon Communications (VZ), climbing 2.74%
After each sinking more than 30% in February (my two worst decliners), INTU and ACN rebounded in March to make my top gainers list. These stocks have been caught up in the market’s recent software selloff. For now, it’s a temporary reprieve. Both stocks have a long way to go to recover their 2026 losses.
Both of my Energy stocks (CVX & ENB) made my top gainers list. Energy stocks have posted strong gains in 2026, and that’s only accelerated since the conflict with Iran began. YTD, the S&P 500 Energy sector is up about 33%… Wow!
The final stock appearing in my top gainers list is VZ. This is the 2nd straight month that VZ has made the list… a real surprise considering VZ is one of my least volatile holdings. Granted the majority of the advance was captured last month during a hot market. Holding up in a down market like VZ did in March is more to be expected.
Note – one sector in my Portfolio had all their holdings in the green this month… Energy (2). This makes it 3 straight months this sector has accomplished the feat.
Of my 51 stocks that declined in price, many posted significant drops. While there weren’t any that dropped 20%, there were 10 of them that sank 10% or more, and another 25 that retreated by more than 5%. Nearly 90% of my holdings were in the red in March!
My worst decliners in March were…
- Nike (NKE), tanking 16.86%
- RPM International (RPM), tumbling 15.63%
- Qualcomm (QCOM), retreating 11.98%
- Procter & Gamble (PG), falling 11.87%
- Texas Instruments (TXN), sliding 11.81%
Leading to the downside in March was NKE. This company has a host of issues at the moment. These include weak growth and poor guidance, declining revenue in China, tariff impacts, higher operational costs, and turnaround challenges. Investors seem to be waiting for evidence that the business is going to get better, but it’s been slow to come.
Materials have been the worst-performing sector over the past month, and RPM was not immune to the retreat. RPM has seen its price targets reduced recently, too. The downward price trend has led to the stock hitting a new 52-week low in March.
After having 4 tech stocks on my top decliners list in January, and 3 tech stocks in February, I’m down to only 2 of them in March. Both QCOM and TXN lost close to 12% over the past month. QCOM has declined in price for 3 consecutive months now, tumbling from $176 down to $128. TXN has held up better… it dropped from a 52-week high set last month.
Lastly, I have PG on my top decliners list. Consumer Staples stocks did not fare well in March, and PG was no exception. After adding $20/share to its stock price in 2026, PG gave that all back this month. PG is very close to reaching its 52-week low after this recent tumble.
Note – a whopping 7 sectors in my Portfolio had all their holdings in the red this month. This includes: Healthcare (8), Financials (6), Consumer Staples (4), Consumer Discretionary (3), Materials (3), Real Estate (3) & Utilities (3).
Top 10 Review
The majority of my Top 10 stocks moved around in my rankings in March. However, all the movement was contained in spots #5 through #10.
Strangely, each of those six stocks that did move went up or down at least two spots. The largest move up was three spots. The largest move down was five spots… enough to take one stock right out of the Top 10.
Performance-wise, each Top 10 stock declined in price this month. This might have happened before (I can’t recall), but I know it doesn’t happen often. Monthly losses ranged from the nearly 12% loss by QCOM to a 0.4% loss by Fastenal (FAST).
Once again, Broadcom (AVGO), Aflac (AFL), Caterpillar (CAT) and AbbVie (ABBV) held onto spots #1 through #4, respectively.
Despite declining in price by 2.73% this month, Visa (V) was able to climb three spots to land at #5.
FAST followed V up the rankings, thanks to its minimal monthly loss as noted above. The stock rose three spots to lay claim to the #6 spot.
Falling two places to finish in the #7 spot was QCOM. That’s now two straight months the stock has fallen two spots. Its double-digit loss in March was the worst amongst my Top 10 stocks.
Despite declining by 1% this month, that was good enough for Nexstar Media Group (NXST) to advance two positions in the rankings and settle in the #8 spot. NXST touched a 52-week high early in the month.
Dropping three places into the #9 spot was BlackRock (BLK). A 10.9% tumble in March didn’t do BLK any favors in my rankings. This is the first time BLK didn’t finish the month above $1,000/share since last May.
Entering my Top 10, for the first time in a long time, was Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). JNJ grabbed the #10 spot. JNJ reached my Top 10 despite posting a nearly 4% loss for the month. The loss ended what had been an 8-month string of gains.
Tumbling out of my Top 10 was RPM International (RPM). The stock sank five places, dropping from the #7 spot. That’s quite the fall, but a 15.6% monthly decline can do that.
Now hovering outside my Top 10 are JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), RPM & Lowe’s Companies (LOW). These stocks could reclaim their previous position in my Top 10 with a good month.
From the table above, my Top 10 holdings now comprise 41.45% of my Portfolio value. This is a small decrease of 0.08 percentage points compared to last month. Of the Top 10 stocks, only JNJ doesn’t have a weighting of at least 3%.
As for the dividend weighting of my Top 10, it now stands at 27.94%. This is a minimal increase of 0.01 percentage points compared to last month. The dividend increase from QCOM earlier in the month was enough to offset the natural percentage decline of the other Top 10 stocks that didn’t raise their dividend this month.
Weightings
In general, for Sector Diversification, I target being within +/-3 percentage points of the sector weightings of the S&P 500. For 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.
At the end of March, there’s now one more sector outside my preferred weighting range. Financials has moved from being inside my preferred weighting range to being slightly overweight. This is a reversal from last month.
Thus, I’ve now got 3 overweight sectors and 3 underweight sectors in my Portfolio (as is usually the case). Industrials is still my most overweight sector and Information Technology is still my most underweight sector.
Sadly, in only one sector did I make headway with regard to getting into my preferred weighting range. That was in Information Technology, where I showed a slight improvement, dropping the weighting difference from -12.04% to -11.99%. Unfortunately, this barely moves the needle.
The sector in which I regressed most was in Industrials. I went from being 7.60% overweight to being 7.84% overweight… a change of 0.24 percentage points. While the S&P 500 Industrials sector became a smaller percentage of the index, the Industrials sector within my Portfolio became a larger percentage. This suggests out-performance of my Industrials holdings relative to those in the S&P 500. One of my Industrials holdings actually managed to be in the green in March, and that was General Dynamics (GD), with a gain of 1.23%.
As for dividend weightings, I have four sectors in the 12%-16% range, four sectors in the 6%-8% range, and the remaining three sectors with roughly a 4% dividend weighting. The Real Estate, Energy, and Materials sectors provide the least dividend income for my Portfolio.
My biggest changes in dividend weighting were in the Communication Services sector (-0.46 percentage points) and in my Bonds sector (+0.54 percentage points). This was due to my trim of Verizon Communications (VZ), and the addition I made to PIMCO Corporate & Income Strategy Fund (PCN), respectively.
As always, I’ll keep all my sector weightings in mind as I continue to adjust my Portfolio, and my watchlist.
Watch List
Since my Portfolio dividends are now used for living expenses (since I’m no longer working), I don’t expect to purchase stocks very often. Yet, I could choose to sell an under-performing stock and invest in a potentially better one. Thus, I plan to keep looking for opportunities and keeping my watchlist up-to-date.
For the 2nd straight month, I made a few Portfolio changes, and my watchlist was useful. I noted two of the moves I might make (trim VZ, add MSFT) during last month’s Portfolio Thoughts post.
Within my Portfolio, here are a few stocks that I’m watching for possible additions…
Amdocs Ltd. (DOX) and Accenture (ACN) remain on the buy list considering they haven’t gained much over the past month. In fact, DOX has fallen further, now under $64.
The recovery from Intuit (INTU) in March has moved the stock off my radar this month.
Microsoft (MSFT) remains on my radar after dropping more over the past month. The stock is now under $373, a good $22 below where I bought a share about 10 days ago.
Automatic Data Processing (ADP) remains an option to add to. The stock now trades under $205… a tad below where I was interested last month.
Adding to NVIDIA (NVDA) is still of interest to me. The stock is hovering around $175 right now, which is the price at which I initiated my position. I’d look to add more below that $175 level.
Nike (NKE) is well below the level I thought I’d add at just a few months ago. Amazingly, the current price under $54 is about 10% below where I initiated my position back in 2016.
Considering stocks I might sell…
Eastman Chemical (EMN) had a bad March, along with many other Materials stocks. I missed a chance to unload at a price over $80 in February.
Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) is a stock I could see trimming or selling in order to boost my NVDA position. I could also use the capital loss to help offset any gains I might book in 2026.
As for non-Portfolio stocks that I’m watching…
None at this time. I remained focused inside my Portfolio instead, where there’s plenty of optimization to do.
Thoughts?
Are you eager to deploy investment capital considering the recent market pullback? Or do recent global events have you happy to sit tight and watch how things develop for a while? Please share your thoughts!