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 American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) was formed in 1978 to help individuals become "effective mangers of their own assets" through education, information, and research. Institutional (professional) investors have long sneered at retail investors and have used them as a contrarian tool: when retail is bullish, institutional is bearish, etc. Institutional investors sneer at their own peril right now. Rising consumer wealth in 401k and IRA accounts, digital trading platforms, the availability of better information, and even meme investing have all increased the clout of the small investor in aggregate. AAII publishes sentiment data in which respondents categorize themselves as bullish, bearish, or neutral. The sentiment survey data is published on a weekly basis. Over the long-term, 37.5% of respondents have listed themselves as bullish; 31.5% as neutral; and 31.0% as bearish. AAII bullishness is in a recovery trend after losing some steam in mid-October and again in mid-November. On 10/15/25, about 34% of respondents were bullish vs. 46% who were bearish, as the first cracks appeared in the AI trade. On 11/12/25, fewer than 32% of respondents were bullish vs. 49% bearish as chances of a December Fed rate cut appeared to be slipping away (spoiler alert: the Fed cut rates). After two follow-on weeks in which bearishness swamped bullishness by about 10 percentage points, bullishness reclaimed AAII leadership in the 12/3/25 and 12/10/25 weeks. Most recently, AAII bullishness was at 44.6%; neutral was 24.8%; and bearishness was 30.6%. Retail investors are sounding an "all clear" into the final trading days of 2025 and potentially setting up a Santa Rally. (Jim Kelleher, CFA)

United Rentals is the largest rental equipment company in the world, with a store network almost three times the size of any other provider, and locations in 49 states and all Canadian provinces. The company has over 27,000 employees and approximately 1,600 rental locations in the U.S. and Canada, as well as locations in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The shares are a component of the S&P 500.

Stocks Stall as Earnings Season Winds Down The stock market has continued higher into November, though not with the gusto it carried across summer into early autumn. Lofty valuations are being blamed for sudden caution in a formerly exuberant market. Investors are back to rotating into formerly weak areas, most notably Healthcare. We see a little rotation in the AI-obsessed market as a healthy thing. Republicans and Democrats are finally showing some urgency about ending the federal government shutdown, or at least putting it on hiatus. The thorny issue of extending pandemic-era ACA subsidies is not resolved but has been pushed out a few months, according to the latest from Washington. The good news is that the government can return to some level of functioning; employees and contractors will be paid, and airports should gradually return to normal. The bad news is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) may be releasing some fairly concerning employment data. Ending (or at least pausing) the Shutdown The Senate on Sunday evening 11/9/25 advanced a bill that would get the Federal government back to some level of normalcy without resolving the key issue that caused the shutdown. Eight Democrats joined with the Republican majority to advance the stopgap measure. The bill would keep the government open until January 30, 2026. Funding for certain federal departments would be in place for the full fiscal year; these include the Agriculture and Veteran Affairs departments. The bill would also limit the administration from firing federal workers through the January 30 deadline. The eight Democrats who voted for the stopgap bill include some moderates along with Senator Tim Caine from Virginia, a state with a large number of federal employees. The agreement includes a pledge from Senate Majority Leader John Thune for a full Senate vote on the issue of extending subsidies for the Affordable Care Act before the end of calendar 2025. Ending the shutdown would contribute to overall economic growth. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the shutdown reduced annualized U.S. GDP growth by 1 to 2 percentage points or by up to $15 billion weekly. Much of that lost production can be recaptured once the government gets back to work, although the CBO estimates that $7billion-$14 billion will not be recovered. Ending the shutdown would also lift the curtain on key economic data, including industrial production, personal incomes and outlays, and nonfarm payrolls. The employment economy appears strained. The ADP private payrolls report for October showed 42,000 U.S. jobs created, following two months of job losses in September and August. The positive reading for October was welcome, but well below the trend of recent years. Private payroll gains were concentrated in areas such as transportation, warehousing, and utilities. The October report showed declines in information and professional & business services, areas associated with white-collar jobs. As employment growth has slowed, investors have consoled themselves that the economy is in a 'low-hire, low-fire' phase. But that phase too could be under pressure. Private-sector data from Challenger, Grey & Christmas may be dispelling that somewhat comforting scenario. The firm, which tracks jobs creation and cutbacks, reported a significant increase in layoffs in October. Job cuts exceeded 150,000 in October 2025, more than tripling from the year-earlier pace. Recently unemployed workers may not find much holiday cheer, as planned seasonal hiring is on pace to be the lowest since 2009, according to retail tracking firm Retail Dive. The U.S. employment economy faces multiple stressors, including reduced work from immigrants targeted by ICE, the DOGE layoffs from earlier in 2025, a productivity transition from humans to AI, and other factors. The best thing for the jobs economy in the near term would simply be getting the federal government back up and running. Wrapping a Positive Earnings Season Calendar 3Q25 earnings season has had an outsized and largely positive impact on stocks. Any earnings season begins with a trickle of data, which increases to a garden hose and then a two-week firehose of earnings data before trickling out again to stray reporters. The two busiest weeks are now behind, and the earnings season has played out slightly better than anticipated. Expectations heading into earnings season, for high-single-digit to low-double-digit growth, were the most positive in at least four quarters. The annual growth rate for calendar 3Q25 earnings is in the 12%-14% range; that went up a few percentage points in the past few weeks as actual results displaced consensus estimate in blended forecasts. More than 82% of companies have reported earnings above the pre-reporting consensus, which is higher than the 75% long-term average. The magnitude of the EPS beat against expectations, in the high-single-digit range, is above the midpoint of the long-term range of 5%-9%. The best growth in the third-quarter earnings season came from the Information Technology, Financial, Utilities, Materials, and Industrials sectors. The weakest sectors include Consumer Staples, Healthcare, and Energy. The single-digit decline in Energy earnings is actually the most-moderate of any quarter in the past year. Nearly all sectors are growing revenue, which is partly a reflection of ongoing inflation. An analysis of earnings-call transcripts suggest that while tariffs are still a topic, they are no longer the all-consuming topic. Companies also disclosed actual and potential impacts from the government shutdown. The overall message was positive, with earnings for calendar 4Q25 forecast to rise in high-single-digit percentages. Third-quarter earnings season is at risk of a weak ending as retailers report a mixed message in this K-shaped economy. Consumers in lower economic tiers are foregoing discretionary purchases as they struggle to pay rent and sometimes for food, amid the absence of SNAP benefits. That could shave a point off earnings growth but would not reverse the overall trend. Argus came into 2Q25 earnings season modeling high-single-digit to low-double-digit earnings, and results approximately matched our expectations. We are reiterating our forecasts for S&P 500 earnings from continuing operations of $270 for 2025 and $300 for 2026. Sector Shifts in the Fourth Quarter The market tends to punish companies whose earnings fail to meet consensus, or sometimes even those who beat consensus but not convincingly. In this period of AI high-flyers, a less than superb EPS report can be a trigger for profit taking. AI company Palantir posted strong results, only to see its stock price slammed. Still, even after a bruising selloff, the PLTR shares are up more than 150% year to date. As of the market close on 11/7/25, the S&P 500 was up 0.6% for the fourth quarter to date. That reflected a 2.5% gain in October pared by a 1.6% pullback so far in November. Stocks rose sharply on 11/10/25 on optimism the shutdown was ending. Analysis of the market immediately prior to the 11/10/25 rally showed healthy rotation. Investors selling AI stocks do not appear to be moving to cash and are instead reallocating into less-cluttered parts of the market. For the fourth quarter to date through the 11/7/25 close, the best S&P 500 sector has been Healthcare, up just under 5%. The rally in Healthcare stocks has multiple drivers, including actions by the Trump administration to bring down prices for GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs, a lessening in the severe pressure on health services (insurance) stocks, and overdue bargain buying by investors taking profits in growth sectors. Despite that profit taking, Information Technology is also positive, with a 2% gain in 4Q25. Utilities are up about 2% in the quarter, as this rate-sensitive sector benefits from Fed rate cuts in September and October - and possibly in December. Traditional growth-sector leader Communication Services is the worst performer in 4Q25 to date, dropping about 5%. Both telecom giants (VZ, T) and internet giants (GOOGL, META) are under pressure as investors assess the huge upfront investment costs for AI data centers. Other underperforming sectors in 4Q25 include Materials (down 4%) and Consumer Staples, Consumer Discretionary, and Financial (all down 2%). Conclusion Profit taking in AI names is not a new thing. In the roughly three-year AI rally that dates to the November 2022 release of ChatGPT, there have been periodic bouts in which AI stocks have fallen out of favor. The tentpole of the AI trade, Nvidia, weakened from February to April 2025 and again in August 2025. Selling of richly priced AI names has been a boon to neglected parts of the market. For 2025 to date, five sectors are up in double-digit percentages: Communication Services, Information Technology, Utilities, Industrials, and Financial. All but Financial are doing better than the year-to-date total return (with dividends) of 15.6% for the S&P 500. Five other sectors (Healthcare, Energy, Consumer Discretionary, Real Estate, and Materials) are up in mid- to high-single-digit percentages, while only Consumer Staples is in the barely positive category. This kind of market breadth is a nice tailwind for the final two months of the trading year. Investors anxious to lock in AI gains are revolving into non-growth sectors, while lagging investors are happy to window-dress portfolios with Mag 7 stocks. Investors in 2026 could face a range of challenges, but right now, the focus is on carrying and maybe building on gains into year-end 2025.