Vickers Stock Research, a subsidiary of Argus Research Group, tracks and analyzes insider trading and institutional stock ownership trends. Form 13-Fs, which institutions must file to report their holdings, are due 45 days after the end of calendar quarters, and have now come in from 1Q24. We like to review the 13Fs of the major activist investors, including Carl Icahn, Trian Fund Management, Jana Partners, and ValueAct Holdings, among others, to determine their core holdings and new purchases. Activist investing has evolved in recent years and is now less about generating a short-term return on an underpriced stock and more about achieving long-term returns through an active management/investor partnership. Activists have made progress in the past year with high-profile investments into blue-chip companies such as Fedex and Union Pacific. According to Vickers, here are recent new purchases and key holdings of activist investors and other high-profile money managers such as Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway and Ken Griffin of Citadel Advisors LLC.

In this edition, we assess exposure of some consumer finance banks; Compass Minerals puts its dividend on ice; Humana's stock pitch shows a rare opportunity; and Enel SpA, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Puma.

Discover Financial Services is a bank operating in two distinct segments: direct banking and payment services. The company issues credit and debit cards and provides other consumer banking products including deposit accounts, students loans, and other personal loans. It also operates the Discover, Pulse, and Diners Club networks. The Discover network is the fourth-largest payment network in the United States as ranked by overall purchase volume, and Pulse is one of the largest ATM networks in the country.

The cold hard message is sinking in. Higher rates are here to stay for longer than expected. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has said multiple times that the Fed will be 'data-driven' when deciding on monetary policy. And the data has spoken. First, let's look at inflation. There has been great progress made in knocking inflation down from its peak of 9.1% in June of 2022. But achieving progress at the current lower levels, with inflation in the low-3% range, as expected, has been difficult. The Fed has been specific, saying inflation needs to be at 2% before restrictive policy will be eased. The Fed was patient after the January inflation data, and again with February data. But when March showed persistently higher prices, the Fed threw came right out and said that change can wait. Chairman Powell said the following last week. "The recent data have clearly not given us greater confidence..." and "If higher inflation does persist, we can maintain the current level of restriction for as long as needed." Now let's consider unemployment. The Fed again has been specific. Officials are looking for a 4.1% unemployment rate to gently (hopefully) slow the economy. Currently, the rate is not budging and is vacillating between 3.8% and 3.9%. Given the current macroeconomic backdrop, the following is a list of industries and companies we like that should benefit from a sustained period of higher interest rates. All are BUY-rated at Argus.