The markets continue to hover near highs and show very little in the way of pullbacks. This has been going on for some time now which has many starting to sit on the sidelines and wait for lower prices. This is a perfectly fine approach for the long term investor, but is there anything out there that is cheap right now? Is there anywhere that seems to be out of favor that you could look at?
Let's start with the oil space. Oil has been hovering in the 40's for months now and with the recent Hurricane in Texas has investors pushing the price back into the low to mid 40's. The issue here is that the world seems to be awash in oil and the US has done well with newer technologies that have them less reliant on foreign oil. All this has created an oversupply that has even OPEC adjusting production. If you look at the oil and gas storage space you can quickly see the disconnect between the winners and losers. Names like Teekay (NYSE: TOO) have suffered while names like Sunoco (NYSE: SUN), and Oneok (NYSE: OKE) have been holding near highs.
Retail is another sector that has truly been out of favor. With all the moves that Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has been making lately it has retail investors thinking that everyone else will fall victim to them. While we have lost retail companies along the way there are still companies that are holding their own in an out of favor sector. Conn's Inc. (NASDAQ: CONN) has managed to grow almost 80% this year, fighting the pressure from Amazon. Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is also a popular name among analysts which has also managed to maintain strong sales.
With the strong markets most names have pushed higher, but with a little work it's possible to find strong names in weak sectors.