This week, Zacks Chief Equity Strategist and Economist John Blank, PhD discusses:

• The best-performing portfolios in 2024, constructed using John’s analyses of top stocks in four key sectors—Conglomerates, Aerospace, Oil & Energy, and Computers and Technology.

• In videos throughout 2024, John has screened for winners in these (and other) sectors using three criteria to define top stocks: market capitalization; number of analysts following the stock; and largest percent change in F1 EPS estimate (the most important element used in assigning a Zacks Rank to stocks). In this week’s session, he evaluates 6-stock portfolios in each sector, built using each of the three definitions, to see which ones did the best. Interestingly, each one of the three criteria produced the winning portfolio in at least one sector.

• Finally, John presents a portfolio of a combined set of tickers from all four sectors—two from each of the winning portfolios— to create an overall winner. This portfolio produced a 35% annual return, which is triple the 2024 return for the S&P 500. You do not want to miss this review of how this portfolio construction system performed in 2024!

The views of John Blank, PhD are not necessarily the views of Zacks Investment Research.