Markets have been all over the place this week, especially yesterday, as the S&P 500 broke below the critical support level of 4200 and has continued to drift lower. But looking at individual stocks paints a much more complicated picture, with some sectors staying the course, others taking a serious hit, and others coming out on top during all the chaos. It’s not a straight-up race to the bottom all around.

Given how volatile it is out there, I’m reluctant to commit a lot of capital to any long-term position right now, and I think you should be as well – it’s still better at the moment to adopt a trading mindset and stay on the speculative side.

That said, we do have one set of indicators that can help us cut through the noise and anticipate which stocks are going to weather this topsy-turvy market the best (or the worst), and that’s earnings reports. Earnings and forward guidance are not the end-all and be-all of figuring out a stock’s performance, of course, and you have to take those numbers in an appropriate context.

But they’re definitely a good starting point, and given that we’re in the middle of earnings season right now, we’ve got reports from several high-volume stocks and can start getting a better idea of whether they represent a good opportunity or are going to be deadweight for a portfolio.

In this week’s Buy This, Not That, I decided to go on a tour of some of those big names. A lot of you probably own every stock I cover, so make sure you check out the video to find out which to buy (if you don’t already have them), which to keep (if you do), and which are a potential waste of your money.

Be extra careful out there, because I don’t think the volatility rollercoaster is coming to a stop in the near future. As always, watch this space for more opportunities as we find them.

— Shah Gilani

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Source: Total Wealth