14 Large Cap Stocks Just Made New 52-Week Highs
A list of new highs raises an old question about what a business truly earns.
Oil & Gas Refining & Marketing placed 3 names on today’s list of 14 Large Cap US and Canada-listed stocks with a market value above $40 billion trading at 52-week highs. The largest company on the list is Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), with a market value of about $662.5 billion.
While the strongest one-month run belongs to Phillips 66 (PSX), up 25.0%, the wider S&P 500 (SPY) has returned -0.8% over the last month. The key question for any name hitting a new high is whether the business fundamentals justify the price. Below are the 10 largest names on the list.
The Biggest Names On The List
The table below shows the 10 largest of the 14 names, sorted by market capitalization, with returns over four windows:
| Tickers | Market Cap |
1D % Chg |
1W % Chg |
1M % Chg |
1Y % Chg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JNJ | $662.54 Bil | 1.5% | 1.9% | 8.5% | 58.0% |
| CVX | $417.18 Bil | 0.3% | 5.8% | 12.2% | 36.0% |
| DE | $188.63 Bil | 3.3% | 10.1% | 13.1% | 48.3% |
| COP | $166.49 Bil | 0.7% | 5.0% | 17.1% | 43.0% |
| PFE | $165.38 Bil | 1.6% | 2.5% | 14.2% | 24.3% |
| VRTX | $141.25 Bil | 1.7% | 1.7% | 16.3% | 38.8% |
| MPC | $111.84 Bil | 1.0% | 6.8% | 24.1% | 118.4% |
| CNQ | $107.66 Bil | 0.0% | 4.4% | 12.2% | 69.5% |
| VLO | $107.63 Bil | 1.1% | 5.2% | 18.6% | 142.3% |
| PSX | $102.68 Bil | 1.6% | 5.7% | 25.0% | 97.0% |
A new high does not always mean a growing business.
Consider Pfizer (PFE), which trades at 38.2 times trailing earnings (on trailing earnings that include at least one loss quarter, so the multiple is not comparable to a clean-year multiple). Its revenue declined 0.2% over the last twelve months. In contrast, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) trades at 31.5 times trailing earnings, and its revenue grew 8.1% over the last twelve months with an operating margin of 26.8%. Chevron (CVX) saw revenue grow 11.2% over the last twelve months, with an operating margin of 12.4% and a multiple of 20.3 times trailing earnings.
A high price is a question, not a verdict.
A list of stocks at their strongest price of the year is a useful screen for strength, and price trends can persist. But a 52-week high is a data point, not a conclusion about a company’s quality or future prospects. The disciplined work is to look past the price and determine if the business itself earns the new valuation.
A new high tells you what the market already believes. The harder question is which of these runs management itself is underwriting. Our Guidance Momentum screen tracks exactly that: stocks where the company raised its own forward numbers.
One more pattern worth noticing: 7 of the 14 names are Energy stocks. When a whole group is making new highs together, an energy ETF like XLE, which holds 5 of these names, is one way to own part of the group’s strength without betting on which single name leads it from here.
New Highs Fade. Discipline Compounds
Some of the names on this list will keep setting highs for years, and some are at the top of their run right now. Sorting one from the other, name by name, every day, is the work most investors never keep up with.
That sorting is what the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio does systematically: about 30 quality businesses screened for the fundamentals that sustain a run, held with rules instead of excitement. It has a track record of outpacing a benchmark that combines the three major indices – the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap, and Russell 2000. Use the high list for ideas; use the portfolio for the compounding.