Industrials businesses quietly power the physical things we depend on, from cars and homes to e-commerce infrastructure. Unfortunately, this role also comes with a demand profile tethered to the ebbs and flows of the broader economy, and the industry is currently lagging as its six-month return of 2.8% has trailed the S&P 500’s 8.1% gain.
Large-cap stocks are known for their staying power and ability to weather market storms better than smaller competitors. However, their sheer size makes it more challenging to maintain high growth rates as they’ve already captured significant portions of their markets.
Mid-cap stocks have the best odds of scaling into $100 billion corporations thanks to their tested business models and large addressable markets. But the many opportunities in front of them attract significant competition, spanning from industry behemoths with seemingly infinite resources to small, nimble players with chips on their shoulders.
Small-cap stocks can be incredibly lucrative investments because their lack of analyst coverage leads to frequent mispricings. However, these businesses (and their stock prices) often stay small because their subscale operations make it harder to expand their competitive moats.
Retailers are overhauling their operations as technology redefines the shopping experience. Still, secular trends are working against their favor as e-commerce continues to take share from brick and mortars. This puts retail stocks in a tough spot, and over the past six months, the industry has pulled back by 1.6%. This drawdown was disappointing since the S&P 500 climbed 8.1%.
Companies that consistently increase their sales, margins, or returns on capital are usually rewarded with the best returns, and those that can do all three for years on end are almost always the legendary stocks that return 100 times your money.
Growth is a hallmark of all great companies, but the laws of gravity eventually take hold. Those who rode the COVID boom and ensuing tech selloff in 2022 will surely remember that the market’s punishment can be swift and severe when trajectories fall.
Whether you see them or not, industrials businesses play a crucial part in our daily activities. But they are at the whim of volatile macroeconomic factors that influence capital spending (like interest rates), and the industry has underperformed the market over the past six months as its 2.8% return lagged the S&P 500 by 5.3 percentage points.
Exciting developments are taking place for the stocks in this article. They’ve all surged ahead of the broader market over the last month as catalysts such as new products and positive media coverage have propelled their returns.