March Madness: Chevron’s Winning Ways Continue

The madness has commenced. Is your bracket already busted?
The NCAA men’s basketball tournament tipped off this week, with St. Patrick’s Day luck on the side of a slew of underdog schools. One of the biggest upsets saw No. 12 seed Yale defeat fifth-seeded Baylor, 79-75. It was the Bulldogs’ first-ever NCAA tournament victory in their first trip to the Big Dance since 1962.
Even more shocking was second-seeded Michigan State’s loss to No. 15 seed Middle Tennessee State. It’s only the eighth time in tournament history that a No. 2 seed fell in the opening round.
There are no true Cinderella stories in Wyatt Research’s stock-based version of March Madness, since we stuck to a tournament field of big-name, blue chip stocks. The biggest surprise from the first week of our stock tourney was Chevron (NYSE: CVX) more than doubling the weekly gains of each of the other 15 stocks in the bracket.
The Big Oil behemoth rode a crude oil rally to a 3.3% share-price gain and another victory this week, knocking out McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD), which posted a 2.1% gain.
The other Elite Eight matchups saw Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) beat Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) sneak by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) dispatch Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC).
 

The complete percentage gains/losses are as follows:

The Final Four field is now set, with Alphabet the only one of my picks still alive. I’ll be pulling for Google’s parent company next week, and I’ll also be keeping a close eye on my already vanquished finals pick, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), as it prepares to launch its Oculus Rift virtual reality headset on March 28.
Now before I get back to the basketball action, here are some of my favorite Wyatt Investment Research articles from the past week:
Good as Gold: Precious Metal Off to Best Start Since 1974 – After being scorned for so long, why has gold suddenly become precious again? First and foremost: central banks.
What a Pig Farmer Can Teach Us About Successful Investing – Successful investing isn’t all that different from successful farming: There’s a growing season and a harvesting season.
A Low-Cost Airline With Outsized Profit Potential – Major airlines have refused to get into a pricing war, which is good news for this low-cost airline which has one of the best profit margins around.
The Breakfast Wars Are Heating Up – All of us are familiar with the old adage that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” But who knew it applied to investing as well? With McDonald’s shares enjoying a renaissance following the introduction of all-day breakfast, its competitors are turning up the breakfast heat in the battle for market share of people’s stomachs.
Dividend Growth That Starts With a 7% Yield – It’s usually one or the other: Dividend growth and a low yield, or high yield with no dividend growth. But there are exceptions, including this diversified infrastructure company which has rewarded investors with 11 consecutive quarterly dividend increases.
Why the SoftBank Breakup Is Easy to Like – The SoftBank (OTC: SFTBY) breakup announcement comes on the heels of a five-year stretch in which the Japanese telecom company has underperformed the S&P 500 index by 18%. But the separation of the company’s overseas technology investments from its slow-growth telecom business will allow SoftBank to make bigger and bolder bets in the startup space.
Emerging-Market Stocks Are Re-Emerging – Flows into emerging-market funds globally in early March were at the highest levels since the end of 2013. Doubts persist though. Many investors question whether this rebound is for real, or whether it’s just a momentary spike in a continuing bear market for EM stocks.
Trader’s Toolkit: What Kind of Trader Are You? – Trading securities is not a monolithic activity. Everyone comes to it with their own angles and opinions, their own strengths and investment time horizon. Knowing who you are as an investor can go a long way to determining your long-term investment success.
Have a great weekend!