2 ‘Myopic’ Stock Buys for Those of Us Who Can't Trust This Market Surge

Thanks to a late rise in trading on Thursday, the S&P 500 ended in the black by a quarter of 1% while the NASDAQ was up better than a third of 1% on the day.

It was the NASDAQ’s 12th straight winning session, the longest winning streak since 2009. I think I need to make an appointment with my optometrist as I feel quite myopic at the moment. I am simply not seeing the same world the market is right now.

While President Trump assures that a deal with Iran with be reached "soon" the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed to almost all traffic. Oil, gasoline, diesel and jet fuel prices are much higher than when the war began as is aluminum, phosphate, urea and a whole slew of other commodity prices. This will boost inflation levels significantly in the months ahead.

And even if the Strait of Hormuz opened fully by the weekend, the damage to global supply chains will take months to mend. Strategic petroleum reserves across the globe that have been drained to deal with the crisis, will need to be refilled. Tens of billions of dollars of repairs will need to be affected around energy and other key facilities throughout the Gulf region.

Not to mention the negative impacts to economic growth. Before hostilities commenced, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow had 3% growth penciled in for Q1. That has been more than halved to 1.3% with its most recent projection. And the war impacts were only for one month of the quarter, it should be noted. Finally, this conflict was the last thing the already strained federal budget needed. The military has already requested a supplement of $200 billion to cover the war in Iran as it is. The administration is planning on an over 40% rise for the defense budget in FY2027. This would be the largest annual increase since WWII.

That said, while the music is playing, you have to get up and dance occasionally. I have some covered-call holdings expiring in the money on Friday and a whole slew of short-term treasuries that expire here in April. I have put some money to work this week in a couple of GARP stocks. Both via covered-call orders with strike prices solidly below current trading levels. I am happy to give up some potential upside for additional downside mitigation. Someday, reality will eventually make more than a cameo in these markets.

I added to my position in Supernus Pharmaceuticals (SUPN) which is trading just under $50 a share. The company just made a strategic acquisition to fill out its pipeline and has several products already on the market. Analysts see solid projected revenue growth ahead for Supernus and the stock trades at 12 times FY2027E EPS. The company has a solid balance sheet with no debt and clocked just over 20% year-over-year revenue growth in its most recently reported quarter.

I also increased my stake in Bandwidth, Inc. (BAND) earlier this week. The company operates as a cloud-based software-powered communications platform-as-a-service or CPaaS provider. The stock got pummeled by fears of AI disruption, like so many in the SaaS space, but has been rebounding lately. Management provided FY2026 guidance calling for revenue growth in the mid-teens. The company is producing substantial free cash flow and authorized a large stock buyback earlier this year. Even with the significant recent rise off beaten down levels, the shares trade at 12 times forward earnings.

At the time of publication, Jensen was long BAND and SUPN.