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The Dow’s top performers this year are a blast from the past.
Legacy tech stocks including Apple, Cisco and IBM have topped the blue-chip index in 2019, while Microsoft and Intel rally not far behind.
One of those names stands apart from the rest, says Frank Cappelleri, chief market technician at Instinet.
“By the numbers, they pretty much look the same, all of them up about 40% from the lows and about 25% year to date. But only one of them has been doing that and also making multiyear highs, and that’s Cisco,” Cappelleri said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.”
Cisco has surged nearly 30% in 2019. If it holds these gains, it will be the best year for Cisco in a decade. It is also at its highest level since 2000.
“Is that outperformance a little bit too much, too soon? I think the second chart suggests the answer is yes.” Cappelleri said. “This [relative strength] level, it’s at about 80, it’s pretty extreme. We last saw this back in early 2018 and over the next few months or so … it did underperform the S&P.”
That’s not bad news for the longer term, he added.
“The silver lining is that this did not wreck its uptrend. It was able to consolidate and extend higher from there, so I think that’s a good blueprint to follow. The stock needs to take a breather, but I’d be comfortable buying it on weakness here,” said Cappelleri.
IBM looks to be the best pick to Boris Schlossberg, managing director of FX strategy at BK Asset Management.
“I like IBM, not necessarily because I think the business is going to really rocket, though I do think the acquisition of Red Hat is going to be positive going forward,” Schlossberg said on the CNBC segment. “I really like it because it’s got a 4.5% dividend and in this environment where 2.5% yield on the 10-year is pretty much all you’re going to see for a long time, I think it’s going to attract some value plays.”
IBM’s nearly 4.5% dividend yield is far higher than the S&P 500’s 2% average. The company has increased its dividend four times in the past five years.
“If it surprises anywhere to the upside I think the potential here is quite good. So IBM, the old reliable, at this point looks very good to me,” said Schlossberg.
