The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.

The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.

The United States economy is full of innovation. It has to be. Manufacturing industries that dominated the economy decades ago - textiles, televisions, even automobiles to a large degree - have moved overseas, where labor and materials costs are lower. Yet the U.S. economy, even during the pandemic and the recent period of high inflation, has expanded to record levels. If U.S. corporations weren't innovating, creating new products (such as AI and vaccines) and services (such as Zoom calls and Netflix), as well as moving into new markets (clean energy, rare drugs), the domestic economy would not be growing, and capital would not be flooding into the country. Consider that U.S. GDP was approximately $1 trillion in 1930 but was almost $31.5 trillion at the end of 2025. That's growth of 30-times. Meanwhile, the U.S. population has grown less than 3-times during that time span, to 340 million from 120 million. The delta between GDP growth and population growth has been driven, in large part, by innovation.

Market Environment in 1Q26 The war in Iran is now coming up against the end of the administration's original four-to-six week timeline, and the situation remains unsettled. In a fast-shifting environment, the initial round of talks between the U.S. and Iran brokered by Pakistan has ended without any agreement; President Trump has announced plans to blockade the Strait of Hormuz and all Iranian ports, while Iran has threatened to attack the ports of the U.S.'s Gulf allies. The Strait, across which one-fifth of the world's oil once moved, has gone from a trickle of oil-tanker traffic to no traffic at all. Brent and WTI crude oil were again above $100 per barrel as the 4/13/26 trading week got underway. Amid prospects for resurgent inflation, U.S. consumer confidence as measured by the University of Michigan survey fell to a record low. And yet the U.S. stock market is hanging in there, so to speak, as investors assess the ever-shifting landscape. Ahead of the 4/13/26 open, value stocks (the Wilshire Large-Cap Value Index), small caps (the Russell 2000), and bonds (the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index) were all positive for the year. Including hypothetical dividends, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were fractionally negative and fractionally positive, respectively, for the year to date. Market performance can shift rapidly. But for now, investors appear to be holding their cards close to their chests. Review: the First Quarter of 2026 The stock market in the first quarter of 2026 had two phases: before the war with Iran and after the war started. The war and resultant oil shock sent the U.S. stock market, little changed for 2026 as of the end of February, down sharply in March. The S&P 500 rose 1.4% in January 2026 as businesses and investors began to get 'used to' what appeared at the time to be fairly stable tariffs. The index fell 0.9% in February on a combination of shocks, including high PPI inflation for January, weak 4Q25 GDP growth, and the Supreme Court striking down IEEPA-based tariffs. The S&P 500 fell 5.1% in March 2026 on the escalating war with Iran, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and one-month price spikes of 40%-50% in crude oil, gasoline, and diesel fuel prices in the U.S. Altogether, the S&P 500 declined 4.6% in the first quarter of 2026, exactly in line with the 4.6% decline in 1Q25 that resulted from anticipation of 'Liberation Day' tariffs. The Nasdaq Composite fell 7.0% in 1Q26, while the blue-chip DJIA declined 3.2% in the first quarter. Investors entering 2026 appeared increasingly confident that companies were successfully navigating trade policy. But producer prices in February 2026 signaled pressures in the goods pipeline. The February PPI increased 0.7% month over month and 3.4% year over year, even before petroleum prices spiked in March. After multiple years of strength, the U.S. employment economy showed signs of slowing in the third and fourth quarters of 2025. Employment has been better than expected but erratic in 2026 to date, with nonfarm payrolls missing consensus expectations both to the upside and downside in alternating months. Following a down December 2025 for employment, the U.S. economy generated a revised 160,000 new nonfarm jobs in January 2026. However, February payrolls declined by a revised 133,000. March 2026 nonfarm payrolls surprised with a 178,000 gain, or 118,000 ahead of consensus. Altogether, nonfarm payrolls averaged a monthly gain of 68,000 for January-March, compared with an average gain of 6,000 for the December-February period. The unemployment rate eased to 4.3% in March from 4.4% in February. Average hourly earnings grew 3.5% annually for March, easing from January (3.7%) and February (3.8%) annual growth. While the employment economy has improved and earnings growth remains strong, another bulwark of the bull market - economic growth - has been weaker than expected. The final report of fourth-quarter 2025 GDP showed growth of just 0.5%, after GDP rose 4.4% in 4Q25 and 3.8% in 2Q25. The steep decline in federal spending related to the October-November government shutdown subtracted 1.16 points from GDP in 4Q25. Fourth-quarter 2025 personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased 1.9%, as total spending on goods increased just 0.3% in 4Q25. Nondurable goods spending increased 0.4%, with lower-income consumers pinched even in their spending on necessities. Services, which was the biggest spending category at 47% of total 4Q25 GDP, rose by 2.7% in 4Q after a 3.6% gain in 3Q25. Nonresidential fixed investment, the proxy for corporate capital spending, grew at a 2.4% annualized rate in 4Q25, down from 3.2% in 3Q25. The AI boom drove 4%-5% growth in both equipment and intellectual property products, while corporate spending on structures declined 6.5%. PCE and nonresidential fixed investment, which constitute 80%-85% of GDP, contributed a combined 1.64 percentage points to 4Q25 GDP growth. For the full 2025 year, gross domestic product expanded at a 2.1% rate, down from 2.8% growth in 2024 and 2.5% in 2023. The ISM's manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) rose to 52.7% in March from 52.4% in February, marking three consecutive months in expansion territory (above 50.0%). ISM's services PMI slipped to 54.0% for March from 56.1% for February, which was the second-highest reading since October 2024. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index moved up to 91.8% in March 2026 from 91.2% in February. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey reading was 53.3% in March, down from 55.5% in February and 57.0% in March 2025. Another bulwark of the bull market has been corporate earnings growth. Annual growth in calendar 4Q25 earnings was in the mid-teens range, better than expectations for low-double-digit growth. Fourth-quarter 2025 results included revenue growth in high-single-digit percentages, as companies successfully navigated around tariffs by sourcing locally. Companies have also been able to expand margins as they begin to incorporate AI-based efficiencies. Fourth-quarter operating margin from continuing operations reached mid-teens percentage levels for 4Q25 calendar earnings, well above the long-term average of 12%. The Fed's preferred inflation gauge, the core PCE price index, rose 0.4% month over month and 3.0% on an annual basis for February 2026. This report did not capture war-related energy inflation. The March all-items CPI, the first pricing report to reflect war-related energy inflation, rose by 0.9% on a month-over-month basis and 3.3% on an annual basis; this was about in line with expectations. Core CPI for March, excluding food and energy, rose 0.2% monthly and 2.6% annually. Given inflation anticipation on the surge in energy inputs, interest rates jumped in March. The 10-year Treasury yield was 4.30% as of the end of March 2026, compared with 3.97% as of the end of February 2026 and 4.14% at year-end 2025. The two-year Treasury yield was 3.79% as of the end of March 2026, vs. 3.39% as of the end of January and 3.45% as of year-end 2025. The 11 S&P sectors began to shift away from growth and toward inflation-hedge, defensive, rate-sensitive, and cyclical in the second half of 2025. The 2026 trading year is a little more than three months old, and that shift has intensified. Traditional growth sectors, which led the market from late 2022 through mid- to late-2025, continued to retrace in 1Q26. But the rotation beneficiaries in defensive, cyclical, and rate-sensitive sectors have also been hit hard since the war began. For 1Q26, the best sector performer by far was Energy (IYE), which rose 38% in the quarter and was leading the market even before the war began. Despite across-the-board March 2026 profit-taking, six of the 11 sectors remained positive as of the end of the first quarter. The five negative sectors year-to-date include the three traditional Growth leaders along with Financial and Healthcare. Conclusion After a positive January 2026, the S&P 500 declined in February and then fell harder in March. April, typically a top-four market month among all the months of the year, was living up to its reputation heading into tax day, with a roughly 4% recovery since the end of March. International Energy Agency (IEA) commissioner Fatih Birol has called the current crisis bigger than the combined impacts of the 1970s oil shocks and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Oil and energy overall are less vital components of domestic and global GDP than they were during past energy crises. At the same time, all-items inflation in the U.S. is rising, the mid-term elections are approaching, and uncertainty about White House policy is increasing. Investors regard the now-unfolding earnings season as a welcome respite from the daily headlines and shifting war policy. We are modeling mid-teens EPS growth for 1Q26. The first-quarter earnings season will capture a period mainly unaffected the war in the Middle East. More important that 1Q results will be the tone and tenor of 2Q26 guidance.