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Arthur J. Gallagher provides consulting, insurance brokerage, and third-party property/casualty claims settlement and administration services. The company's businesses include Brokerage, Risk Management, and Corporate. The Brokerage segment provides brokerage and consulting services to commercial and nonprofit organizations. The Risk Management segment provides contract claim settlement, claim administration, loss-control services, and risk management consulting services.

While long-term insider-sentiment readings from Vickers Stock Research are improving from recent lows, shorter-term readings have yet to find consistent footing. Indeed, the one-week sell/buy ratios from Vickers continue to dance a minuet, with steps forward followed by steps back. Still, the overall action has been sufficiently positive to allow the eight-week ratios to improve for five consecutive weeks now. While insider sentiment is not yet bullish, it will be interesting to see if sentiment improves more consistently after earnings season ends and insiders can trade freely once again.

This pick list highlights constituents of the Morningstar US Large Cap Index that we believe offer investors the best risk-adjusted return prospects. Stocks of large-cap companies where neither growth nor value characteristics predominate. Stocks in the top 70% of the capitalization of the U.S. equity market are defined as large cap.

Fed "rate announcement" days should be renamed "algorithms go wild" days. The major indices went nuts during Chairman Powell's 2:30 press conference, with the S&P 500 rising from flat to a 60-point gain by about 3:00. That was followed by an almost 80-point plunge during the last hour. They say one should fade the first Fed move, which usually means the next day -- but this was all done in the last 90 minutes! So nothing has changed, the S&P 500 (SPX) remains in a pullback below its 50-day, and the index appears to be tracing out a bearish or rising wedge in the short term. That would suggest we will have another leg lower.