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This Week's Featured Story
3 Sectors to Buy While They're Down and 1 to Walk Away FromBy Bridget Bennett. First Published: 4/7/2026. 
Key Points
- American Express, KKR, and other financial stocks are trading at multi-year low valuations, and insider buying at KKR suggests the private credit panic may be overdone.
- Healthcare disruptors like Hims & Hers and software names like Figma are showing strong consumer adoption even as Wall Street sentiment remains deeply negative.
- The energy sector, despite being 2026's top performer, may be set for a short-term pullback as FOMO-driven buying creates overextended conditions.
- Special Report: Elon Musk’s $1 Quadrillion AI IPO
When the S&P 500 flirted with 7,000 in January, everyone wanted in. Now, with the index roughly 400–500 points lower, the mood has flipped to fear. That disconnect between price and psychology is exactly where contrarian investors Jeff Clark of TradeSmith and Andy Swan of LikeFolio see opportunity. The setup is simple: risk tends to be priced out on the way down, not on the way up. Buying at 6,500 can be a smarter risk-reward trade than buying at 7,000, even though it feels worse. Clark and Swan are targeting three beaten-down sectors where sentiment has overshot to the downside—and flagging one popular sector where FOMO may be setting a trap. Financials: Insiders Are Buying What Wall Street Is Selling
Liberation Day wiped over $2 trillion from markets in a single day. Then a 90-day tariff pause added $4 trillion back to the S&P 500. Trump's AI initiatives sent Palantir up over 140%. Trader Larry Benedict says all of that was just the warm-up.
Benedict is calling what comes next 'Project 2026' - a move he believes could send billions, potentially trillions, into overlooked corners of the market. He's identified one ticker sitting at the center of it all, and he's revealing the name today at no cost. Larry is calling it "Project 2026."
The financial sector has been under broad pressure in 2026, dragged down by worries about private credit, interest-rate uncertainty, and recession fears. Clark sees that as an opportunity, not a warning. American Express (NYSE:AXP) is his top pick. The stock has shed roughly 20% since the start of the year and is trading near $300 after hitting a 52-week high above $387 in late 2025. Full-year 2025 EPS was $15.38, up 15% year over year, and the company increased its quarterly dividend by 16%. The fundamentals haven't broken down—the multiple has simply compressed to levels not seen in years. The private credit segment tells an even more dramatic story. Names like KKR (NYSE:KKR), Apollo Global Management (NYSE:APO), and Blue Owl Capital (NYSE:OWL) have fallen 25% to 40% from their highs. A few weeks ago, every financial news outlet was running the same negative headlines about private credit stress. Clark's contrarian instinct kicked in: when CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox Business all repeat the same narrative, it's worth questioning. At KKR, both co-CEOs stepped up in February and purchased a combined 175,000 shares worth more than $30 million. That's not the behavior of insiders bracing for a crisis. Swan adds Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD) to the financial-sector watchlist. The stock surged past $100 last fall when sentiment was exuberant. Now it has pulled back significantly, but LikeFolio's consumer data shows people are still flocking to the platform—opening credit cards, moving 401(k)s, and establishing crypto positions. When Wall Street hates a stock but consumers keep showing up, that's the divergence Swan looks for. Healthcare: Consumer Adoption vs. Regulatory FearHealthcare stocks have been beaten down by government spending cuts, reregulation fears, and headline volatility. Clark likes Molina Healthcare (NYSE:MOH) and Oscar Health (NYSE:OSCR) as value plays in the space. The contrarian standout, though, is Hims & Hers Health (NYSE:HIMS). Swan calls it a similar setup to Robinhood: a stock that ran too hot, pulled back sharply, and now trades at levels that don't reflect underlying consumer momentum. LikeFolio's data shows accelerating app downloads, growing product purchases, and enthusiastic customer sentiment. The healthcare establishment may not love that Hims exists, but consumers do. The regulatory noise is real—lawsuits, FDA scrutiny, and competitive threats from legacy pharma. Swan acknowledges the volatility but frames it as opportunity. His analogy: Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) was dismissed for years as a money-losing fad. Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) was written off as a passing trend. Companies that attract consumer gravity tend to win over long time horizons, even when short-term headlines create chaos. Software: The AI Threat Is Being ExaggeratedThe software sector may be the most misunderstood trade in the market right now. The prevailing narrative says AI will kill software-as-a-service. Clark argues that's the same logic that predicted Google would become irrelevant when AI threatened search. Instead, Alphabet pivoted and became one of the best-performing Magnificent Seven stocks over the past year. Clark points to the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (BATS:IGV), which has round-tripped to roughly $78 after rallying 13% off the same level during his last appearance. He sees another entry forming. Individual names he likes include Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW), and Figma (NYSE:FIG). Figma is a contrarian case study: the design platform has plunged roughly 82% from its post-IPO peak and now trades around $21 versus a 52-week high near $143. Swan sees Figma as a direct beneficiary of the "vibe coding" revolution—the wave of non-developers using AI tools to build apps and digital products. Revenue grew 40% year over year in Q4, and consumer adoption signals remain strong even as Wall Street has written the stock off. Swan's broader point is simple: AI doesn't kill software—AI is software. It makes existing platforms more powerful, more useful, and more accessible. The companies that adapt will emerge stronger, not weaker. Energy: The 1 Sector to Avoid Right NowHere's where the contrarian knife cuts the other way. Energy has been the best-performing sector in 2026 after being the worst in 2025. Oil and gas stocks have been on a tear, and the FOMO is palpable. Clark isn't necessarily bearish on energy over the long term—he thinks many of these stocks could be higher a year from now. But over the past several weeks, the sector has gotten ahead of itself. Too many investors are chasing momentum, and crowded positioning like that tends to unwind painfully. Swan agrees, but offers a tactical approach: build a watchlist now and be ready to buy the pullback. He mentions Oklo (NYSE:OKLO) as a name on his radar—an energy infrastructure play tied to the data-center buildout. Rather than chasing, he suggests selling puts below current prices to collect premium while waiting for a better entry. Contrarian Thinking Means Being UncomfortableThe pattern across all three bullish sectors is the same: fundamentals are holding up or improving, but sentiment has cratered. That gap between price and reality is where Clark and Swan operate. It isn't comfortable. It requires buying what everyone else is selling and avoiding what everyone else is chasing. As Clark notes, if everybody liked his ideas, they'd be the popular ones—and they probably wouldn't work. |
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