Josh Brown takes a look at winners and losers on his Best Stocks list as Q4 begins
(This is The Best Stocks in the Market , brought to you by Josh Brown and Sean Russo of Ritholtz Wealth Management.) Josh — Three-quarters into 2026 is a good spot to stop and grade ourselves. The Best Stocks in the Market list is built by the market. Names qualify on price and relative strength, and they fall off the same way. We don’t vote on who gets in. What we do decide is which names get written up, what the setup looks like, and where we’d be wrong. Every write-up comes with two levels, one for traders and one for investors, and those levels get set the day we put the name in front of you. Before anyone knows how the story ends. Today we’re going back to four of those write-ups. Two are still on the list and have done everything we could have asked. Intel (INTC) has been rebuilding itself around data center processors and a foundry business, and the market has noticed. Valero Energy (VLO) is one of the largest independent refiners in the world and has been sitting at the center of the oil shock all year. Both have more than doubled since we first wrote them up in January. A move like that creates a new problem. The original stops are now so far below current prices that they no longer tell you anything useful. So we’re going to reset the risk levels on both. The other two fell off the list. CRH (CRH) makes cement, asphalt and other building materials, mostly for the North American market. First Solar (FSLR) is a U.S. solar module manufacturer that doesn’t depend on Chinese supply chains. Both were rate-sensitive stories in a year when the 10-year went the wrong way. CRH broke through both of our levels within about two months. First Solar qualified for the list, but we warned against it based on the technical setup. That caution paid off when the chart fell apart. We’ll show you what the charts said at the time and what happened after. Sean’s got the usual Monday morning highlights from the list. I’ll be back with some technical commentary and risk management. As of Oct 5, there are 145 names on The Best Stocks in the Market list. Top sector ranking: Top industries: Top 5 best stocks by relative strength: Sector spotlight: Winners and losers through three quarters Sean — Football is my favorite pastime, so bear with me. The third quarter is over for 2026, and anyone who has watched enough ball knows the fourth quarter makes or breaks the game. A lot is still up in the air as the clock ticks down. The 10-year Treasury yield closed at 5.24% on Sept. 28, right at the previous 2007 closing high. The Fed hiked in September, and markets are pricing in another hike for October. Inflation hasn’t cooled, the Iran war is in its seventh month, and AI spending keeps lurching higher every quarter. As the final quarter of what has been a wild year kicks off, we wanted to go back to the tape and see what did well and what didn’t. Starting with the winners: Intel Corp. (INTC) Sean — Intel designs and manufactures processors for PCs and data centers, and is building a foundry business to make chips for other companies. We wrote it up twice this year, on Jan. 26 and April 27 . The stock is up 163% since the first write-up and 39% since the second, and up 214% year to date. In January, Intel had just dropped a tape bomb. Q4 revenue was $13.7 billion, down 4%, and Q1 guidance of $11.7 billion–$12.7 billion missed expectations. Josh said the only number that mattered was $40 — as long as the stock held the low-$40s and respected the rising 50-day, the uptrend was intact. By April, the problem had reversed. After a 24% one-day jump on Q1 earnings, RSI was at 82 and we were off and running. In April, we noted Q2 guidance of $13.8 billion–$14.8 billion, and Intel delivered $16.1 billion, up 25% year over year. That was its seventh straight quarter above expectations. Non-GAAP EPS of $0.42 was more than double guidance. The data center and AI segment grew 59% to $6.3 billion at a 40% operating margin. Management said server CPU demand is outrunning industry-wide supply and expects those constraints to last into next year. The stock traded as high as $142 earlier this year before pulling back, and by August it had given back roughly a third of its gains since June. September brought another leg up. It rose 12% on September 21 on hopes that the popularity of Meta’s Muse AI agent would boost CPU demand. Coming up, Intel reports Q3 on Oct. 22 against guidance of $15.8–$16.8 billion in revenue and $0.38 in EPS. Josh — We were bullish all year but, in hindsight, not bullish enough. Either way, we’ll take it. This column nailed two of the biggest trades of the year for you in Intel and Dell (DELL) and both are still on the list. Intel ran to $142 in June, then gave back a big chunk of that move in a hard summer correction. The low came in the low $80s at the end of July, and a higher low followed in September. From there the stock pushed back above the 50-day and cleared the $100 to $105 ceiling that capped every rally in August. The Sept. 21 jump Sean described above added another leg. The stock is at $119, with the 50-day turning back up at $101 and the 200-day at $81. Friday’s session pushed to $126 intraday and reversed to close at $119, just under the recent $127 high. That’s the near-term ceiling. With RSI at 61, momentum has cooled off from the push above 70 in late September without rolling over. The July bottom washed RSI all the way down into the low 30s. That full flush is what cleared the way for this second leg. Anyone who wanted out had their chance. At 61, the stock has room to take another shot at $127 without starting from a stretched reading. Nothing broken here. Six month zoom-in: Traders can use $110 as their line in the sand. That’s the open of the September 21st gap candle, the first price paid after the air pocket. A close back below it means the gap is being filled and the September move has lost its urgency. Either the gap holds or it doesn’t, and you’ll know which soon enough. Closing prices only, don’t get whipsawed intraday. Investors can anchor to $100. The rising 50-day is sitting right on top of the $100 to $105 band that capped the stock all August and then became the launch pad in September. That’s not an accident. A weekly close below $100 and the second leg has failed. Valero Energy Corp. (VLO) Sean — Valero is one of the largest independent petroleum refiners in the world, turning crude into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, with renewable diesel and ethanol businesses alongside. We wrote about it on Jan. 8 , and it’s up 113% since then and 142% year to date. The January setup was right around the Venezuela news. Energy names gapped higher after the U.S. operation there, and Josh called VLO the best of the three major refiners and “a horse.” He said investors could stay long above the $155–$160 support zone. For traders, he preferred the rising 50-day at $172 over the bottom of the gap at $177, because the gap risked a whipsaw. That 50-day now sits around $350. Venezuela turned out to be the beginning of what has been a massive oil price shock. Since late February, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran war has disrupted roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply. Brent spiked to around $118 in late March, fell back near $70 by July 1, and climbed to $109 in early September as attacks on shipping and energy infrastructure resumed. On the Q2 call, management described global refining capacity as tight, with product inventories well below historical averages. The earnings confirm what price has done. Q2 net income was $3.7 billion, or $12.62 per share, compared with $714 million, or $2.28, a year earlier. Revenue rose to $44.5 billion from $29.9 billion, and refining operating income more than tripled to $4.5 billion. Valero returned $2.6 billion to shareholders in the quarter, a 59% payout ratio, and the board authorized a new $5 billion buyback in July. Josh — We smashed it for you with our numerous calls in the refiners dating back to 2025. Phillips 66 (PSX), Marathon Petroleum and Valero have been on the list pretty much since we began our write-ups and we’ve been keeping you up to speed on them ever since. I’m doubly proud of the calls because they are not tech stocks or in any way involved in this year’s predominant AI data center theme. The takeaway here is that there are pockets of strength away from where the herd is charging and once you learn to study price you can find them. As a matter of fact, these three names have been the number one, two and three best performing S & P 500 energy stocks of the year so far. PSX, in third, is still more than 25 points ahead of the next name, APA. This is our Best Stocks concept in motion in the real world. When it works, it looks indistinguishable from a magic trick. “How’d you do that?” It won’t always work this well, which is why we manage risk. Valero has been one of the cleanest uptrends on the list all year, and the refining backdrop Sean laid out above is the reason. The stock spent the spring chopping between $230 and $265, broke out in July, and hasn’t come back to test its 50-day since. Late September brought the first real scare. After tagging a high near $418, the stock got hit on the heaviest volume in months and dropped to about $365 within a few sessions. Buyers absorbed all of it. The stock is back at $406, with the 50-day rising at $355 and the 200-day at $260. The $418 high is the level to clear. RSI tells the story of that shakeout. It peaked near 80 in mid-September, fell to 50 on the selloff, and has climbed back to 66 as the stock recovered. That’s a full momentum reset in a matter of days without any damage to the trend. The late September selling flushed out the profit-takers in a hurry, and the stock didn’t need weeks to repair itself. Healthy! Six months zoom-in: Traders can use $365 as their stop. That’s the late September low, where the selloff ran out of sellers. A close below it and the shakeout turns into something more serious. You get your answer early, before a small loss turns into a big one. Judge it on the close, not the intraday swings. Investors can anchor to $350. The rising 50-day at $355 sits right on top of the mid-August consolidation, two separate reads pointing at the same spot. Below that on a weekly close and the trend that started in July is in question. Now for the losers: CRH Plc (CRH) Sean — CRH is a building materials company producing cement, asphalt and other construction products, with most of its business in North America. We wrote about it on Jan. 12 , and it’s down 33% since and 31% year to date. It came off the Best Stocks list on March 5. The January thesis was falling rates. Mortgage rates had just dipped below 6% for the first time in five years, and we framed it as a late cycle handoff to Materials. We gave traders the rising 50-day at $120. Investors got $105 level, which was the bottom of the August gap. We said “Below that level and you’re wrong, move on.” Well, the stock broke with the rest of homebuilders as rates vaulted higher. The 10-year started the year around 4.15% and is now above 5.2%. Freddie Mac’s 30-year mortgage average hit 7.03% as of September 24, and existing-home sales fell to a one-year low of 3.98 million in August. CRH felt it in its Americas Building Solutions segment, where Q2 revenue fell 2% and adjusted EBITDA fell 8% on divestitures and subdued residential demand. UBS also pointed to weak U.S. cement sentiment, worries about an infrastructure funding cliff, and skepticism toward recent M & A. In June, CRH agreed to buy Arcosa for $150 per share in cash (the deal is still pending) at about $8.5 billion in enterprise value, and it paused buybacks after the announcement. Overall, the business held up okay. Q2 was a record, with revenue of $10.8 billion (up 6%), EPS of $2.21 (up 14%), and reaffirmed full-year EPS guidance of $5.60–$6.05. The earnings have held up but the multiple hasn’t. At $83.60, CRH trades around 14 times the midpoint of that guidance. Josh — In January we showed you $120 as the trader stop out (rising 50-day) and then $105 for investors with a bit more patience. We showed you the importance of the $105 support line with the following chart: Taking a bunch of small losses quickly will always be preferable to locking up capital and riding a donkey for months or years. First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) Sean — First Solar is a U.S.-based solar module manufacturer of thin-film technology and is one of the few solar companies that do not rely on Chinese supply chains. We wrote it up on Jan. 22 under the headline that it could soon break out to 20-year highs. It’s down 27% since then and 32% year to date. In January, we said FSLR was on the list but not ready for a new long position. We wanted one of two things. One, a reclaim of the 50-day with stronger closes and RSI turning higher. And two, a retest of the rising 200-day around $200. The fundamental case was a $16.4 billion backlog of 54.5 GW running through 2030, plus an expected 50% EPS growth year. FSLR hit an all-time high of $320.95 on June 3, 32% above our write-up price. The stock then rolled over and was removed from the list a final time in late June. It’s now 45% below that previous high. Rates did most of the damage. On September 24 the stock fell 10.3%, as higher borrowing costs weighed on solar projects that need heavy upfront capital, with the 10-year near 5.2%. The backlog has also shrunk to 45.1 GW, worth $13.6 billion. You can throw a number of bad stories at this one. Rates, political environment, and a higher cost of materials, to name a few. Josh — First Solar is a great example of why we don’t just blindly allocate to the Best Stocks in the Market List based on inclusion. If it were that easy, we’d just create an ETF based on the index and sell it to you for 50 basis points. It’s not that easy. FSLR qualified the list and we dutifully wrote up the fundamental story for you. But in my risk management commentary, I said “not today”… We don’t typically write up chart formations that look like this but the purpose of today’s column is to just put the name on your radar…Sometimes a name is on our list of Best Stocks, but it’s not ready for a new long position. This is one of those cases. In the aftermath of that post at the end of January, FSLR continued to fall into the spring. It fell off the list, bottomed between March and May, then had a short, sharp summer rally as Sean mentioned. So what. We’re focused on set-ups for our ideas in these columns, not trying to capture every point of upside in every stock that goes up. We’ll continue to use examples like these as teachable moments to show you why some ideas from the list are worth playing while others are not. DISCLOSURES: Ritholtz currently hold shares of Valero Energy (VLO) for clients in its Porterhouse concentrated momentum strategy. For full disclaimer and additional details, go here . 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