Hi, Everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting this. I took a vacation at the end of April and failed to get this out prior to my departure. So, let’s get this going.
After a rough month of March that saw the war in Iran drag down the stock market, only one month later investors seem to have shrugged off the ongoing conflict and instead focused on earnings.
Essentially, a complete recovery took place in the stock market. It’s been quite the wild ride (down, then up) over the past couple of months.
Note – the monthly percentages noted below are through 4/24/26.
Information Technology and Communication Services stocks, especially the Magnificent 7, have led the stock market to new highs this month. The S&P 500 gained over 10% over the past month… impressive!
Energy stocks were the ones giving up ground in April (approaching -5%), after a blistering start to 2026. However, the Energy sector is still up over 30% year-to-date (YTD).
At the other end of the performance spectrum are Financial and Healthcare stocks, both of which have lost over 5% YTD. Still, the S&P 500 as a whole is up over 5% YTD.
My Portfolio has held up pretty well amid all the uncertainty. My calculations reveal nearly a 7% return in 2026 thus far.
Also, only one of my Top 10 holdings was in the red this month… a nice reversal compared to March.
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 April 2026…
Price Movement
Note – my price changes cover closing prices from 3/23/26 to 4/24/26.
My Portfolio recovered very well with the April upswing in the stock market. The gainer/decliner ratio was a little better than 2:1. Of my 57 holdings, 39 rose in price, while the remaining 18 slipped. This is a reversal compared to last month, but not quite as strong. Still, those stocks that did advance, did so with gusto (as you’ll soon see), allowing my Portfolio to bounce back nicely from March losses.
Here were the stocks with the biggest moves to the upside and downside…
Of my 39 stocks that rose in price in April, one of them advanced by more than 40%! Two more rose over 30%, including my largest holding! I consider myself lucky if I had one stock from my Portfolio move higher by 30%, but three… wow! One more stock gained at least 20%. Yet another ten stocks recorded a gain above of 10% (the usual threshold I monitor for). Then, throw in 10 more stocks that gained at least 5%. There were plenty of big moves to the upside in April.
My top gainers in April were:
- Texas Instruments (TXN), rocketing up 46.92%
- UnitedHealth Group (UNH), surging 31.68%
- Broadcom (AVGO), rallying 31.08%
- Cummins (CMI), popping 20.52%
- NVIDIA (NVDA), jumping 18.58%
Sticking out in the top gainers list are 3 technology stocks, more specifically, semiconductor stocks: TXN, AVGO & NVDA.
TXN was part of my top decliners list last month. I’d say it was quite a rebound in April. The stock popped on excellent earnings and strong guidance. The company’s analog and embedded chips are in demand due to their need in AI data center builds.
As for AVGO, investor excitement for the company’s new AI partnerships and huge custom chip deals seemed to be the primary reason for its price advance. These moves helped AVGO solidify their position in the AI infrastructure market.
Surging demand for GPUs in data centers and rising earnings expectations helped NVDA reach a new 52-week high this month.
UNH was able to recover its losses from February and March with a nice gain in April. The stock rose thanks to a payment rate increase from Medicare Advantage, good Q1 earnings that surpassed expectations, and a full-year outlook that was raised.
Lastly, there was CMI. The stock had risen in price for 10 straight months before a one-month hiatus in March. However, it’s back to advancing in April, reaching a new 52-week high. This Industrials stock has benefited from positive momentum in the sector, solid demand for data center power, and a slew of analyst upgrades.
Note – three sectors in my Portfolio had all their holdings in the green this month… Materials (3), Real Estate (3) and Utilities (3).
Of my 18 stocks that declined in price, none were as volatile as I had to the positive side. Thankfully, there weren’t any stocks that dropped 20%. However, there were six that dropped 10% or more, and another 4 that retreated by more than 5%. This pales in comparison to those stocks that were in the green this month.
My worst decliners in April were…
- Lockheed Martin (LMT), sinking 16.68%
- Nike (NKE), tumbling 15.22%
- Intuit (INTU), dropping 13.36%
- Nexstar Media Group (NXST), sliding 11.49%
- Hershey Co. (HSY), retreating 11.01%
The largest slide of the month came from LMT. A disappointing earnings release that included missed forecasts, and detailed supply chain issues that caused program delays, did the stock in. There was probably some profit taking in there as well from strong gains through the end of February.
NKE was a repeat offender this month after being part of my top decliners list last month, too. This is never a good thing. A weak fiscal Q3 earnings report only seemed to offer disappointing news, and showed a recovery that can’t seem to get started. NKE has seen its stock price sink about 33% over the past 3 months.
Sadly, INTU went from my top gainers list in March to my top decliners list in April. It’s been a rough go of it for INTU, as investors have sold the stock aggressively in 2026. Investors believe that AI advancements will disrupt this company’s software business model. Slowing revenue growth guidance has only exacerbated the problem.
NXST had its acquisition of Tegna temporarily blocked by a federal court, causing its stock to drop over 13% in just one day. The loss has essentially wiped out any gain NXST had accumulated in 2026.
The last of my top decliners this month is HSY. HSY is still grappling with high cocoa costs, and now increased freight costs. These factors have compressed its net profit margin. HSY has raised product costs to consumers to offset this, but this is leading to lower volumes. HSY has also been cautious with its earnings guidance, leading investors to believe that lower-than-anticipated growth is on the horizon.
Note – just one sector in my Portfolio had all of its holdings in the red this month. That sector was Energy (2).
Top 10 Review
Activity inside my Top 10 rose in April. While the top three spots remained steady, spots #4 through #10 displayed a new stock this month.
The majority of the movers rose or fell just a single spot. However, a couple of stocks managed to climb three spots each, while another tumbled six spots.
Two stocks dropped out of the Top 10 in April… meaning that a couple of stocks are new this month. Both of the ‘new’ stocks had previously graced the Top 10 before.
Nine of my Top 10 stocks were in the green this month. This is no surprise given all the gains posted within my Portfolio in April. The monthly gains ranged from a better than 31% gain by AVGO to roughly a 0.5% gain from Fastenal (FAST).
As was the case last month, Broadcom (AVGO), Aflac (AFL) and Caterpillar (CAT) continued to lock down spots #1 through #3, respectively.
QCOM had quite the surge in April. The stock rose nearly 16%. This was enough to propel the stock up three spots in my rankings, landing it at #4.
My lone Top 10 stock in the red this month was AbbVie (ABBV). It fell just over 3%, resulting in it slipping one spot to #5.
Despite a gain north of 1.6% posted by Visa (V), the stock also slid one spot in my rankings… to #6 in this case.
With the aforementioned gain of about a half percent, FAST laid claim to the #7 spot. This was a fall of one spot compared to last month.
BlackRock (BLK) recorded a solid gain of over 7% in April, leading to the stock climbing one spot to finish at #8.
Now we get to the two new Top 10 stocks. The first is RPM International (RPM). RPM used a nearly 9% gain to vault three spots in the rankings, cracking the Top 10 and taking over the #9 slot. Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) rose one spot to enter the Top 10 and secure #10 as a result of gaining over 6%.
So, which stocks fell out of the Top 10 to make room for RPM & JPM? The worst was Nexstar Media Group (NXST) with an almost 11.5% pull back, giving up #8 and plunging six spots. The other was Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), which lost more than 3%, causing it to slip two spots and exit the Top 10.
Now lurking outside my Top 10 are Lowe’s Companies (LOW), JNJ, Union Pacific (UNP) and NXST. These 4 stocks are tightly clustered in my rankings and each currently sits over $2K outside the Top 10.
From the table above, my Top 10 holdings now comprise 43.56% of my Portfolio value. This is a big increase of 2.11 percentage points compared to last month. The 31% gain from my largest stock (AVGO) was the primary cause for this leap. Of the Top 10 stocks, just RPM & JPM don’t have a weighting of at least 3%.
As for the dividend weighting of my Top 10, it now stands at 26.32%. This is a decrease of 1.62 percentage points compared to last month. This stemmed from NXST being replaced by JPM in the Top 10. The replacement of JNJ with RPM was essentially a wash from a dividend weighting perspective.
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.
With April coming to an end, I still have the same number of sectors outside my preferred weighting range, which is 6. This includes 3 overweight sectors and 3 underweight sectors in my Portfolio. Industrials is still my most overweight sector and Information Technology is still my most underweight sector.
For the 2nd straight month, I only made headway with regard to getting closer to my preferred weighting range in 1 of these 6 sectors. Once again, that was in Information Technology. When your largest holding (AVGO) gains 31%, I’d hope one could close the underweight gap… which I did. My weighting difference in Info Tech went from -11.99% to -11.11% in April. However, I’ve still got a long way to go in this sector before it’s in my preferred weighting range.
The sector in which I regressed most was in Communication Services. I went from being -3.26% underweight to being -3.93% underweight… a change of 0.67 percentage points. While the S&P 500 Communication Services sector weighting held steady in April, the same sector within my Portfolio floundered comparatively, leading to a larger weighting difference. Nexstar Media Group (NXST) and Verizon Communications (VZ) didn’t help with their respective 11.49% and 8.3% price drops during the month.
As for dividend weightings, they didn’t change much. The biggest change was in Consumer Staples, which added 0.17 percentage points, most likely due to the Procter & Gamble (PG) dividend raise in April. Most of my dividend income is still provided by my Healthcare sector (15.67%), with the Real Estate sector providing the least (3.90%).
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 time this year, I didn’t make any Portfolio changes during the month. So, my watchlist didn’t come in too handy, but that’s OK.
Within my Portfolio, here are a few stocks that I’m watching for possible additions…
Most of these are the same as last month, as these stocks haven’t really participated in the recent market rally.
A pair of IT Consulting Services companies continue to languish in Amdocs Ltd. (DOX) and Accenture (ACN). DOX has been treading water the past month and still trades around $64. However, ACN continues to drift down in price, now trading around $175… a new 52-week low.
Automatic Data Processing (ADP) has only moved up $2/share or so over the past month, now hovering around $207. Thus, it remains on my radar.
Software stocks have been up and down quite a bit in recent months… mostly down. They have me nervous to buy. Thus, I’m just watching for now. A couple of names include Intuit (INTU), which seems most volatile right now, and Microsoft (MSFT), which gives me a little more comfort. Adding a share or two of INTU below $400 seems reasonable. This would be nearly $200/share below my current cost basis. MSFT made a decent recovery to around $408 by the end of April. I might look to add a share below $375 should it dip to that level again.
I’m still looking to add to my NVIDIA (NVDA) position if I can around $175. But the climb to around $200 near the end of April made a buy less appealing.
Another Mag 7 stock I’m watching is Meta Platforms (META). The stock dropped last week after detailing its capital expenditures along with its earnings release. This got investors nervous and sank the stock price about 10%. I’d look to add below $600.
Nike (NKE) took another step down in price in April. I didn’t think it could drop below $50, but here it is, now trading around $44. Adding some shares at this level would easily drop my cost basis.
Lastly, Medtronic (MDT) is looking a little undervalued, trading around $77. I wouldn’t mind adding some shares at this level, as the stock is currently my smallest Healthcare position.
Considering stocks I might sell…
I need to consider trimming my AVGO position, even if ever so slightly. By the end of April, the stock had grown to become almost 13.5% of my Portfolio. It is well beyond my preferred 5% max weighting. It’s also 3x larger than my 2nd largest position – which used to be Aflac (AFL), but is now Caterpillar (CAT).
Eastman Chemical (EMN) and Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) remain on my chopping block. If either stock could reach $80, I might pull the trigger on a sale.
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?
Tech led the April rally and could be looking expensive now. Do stock valuations in other sectors look interesting to you? Are you worried that a prolonged war with Iran will sink the stock market? Please share your thoughts!