The Tariff Steamroller Has Flattened Some Good Stocks

Moose head at the Abercrombie & Fitch store on 5th Avenue in New York City. Abercrombie is one of ... More five stocks highlighted in the latest Casualty List. (Photo by David Pomponio/FilmMagic for Paul Wilmot Communications)
FilmMagic for Paul Wilmot Communications
The tariff steamroller ran over the stocks of some good companies in the first quarter and early April. That provides lots of candidates for my Casualty List, a roster of stocks that have been hit hard and that I believe have excellent recovery potential.
The basic idea in investing is to buy low and sell high, Market declines offer an opportunity for the “buy low” part. Are we near a bottom? I can’t tell. But I know that many stocks are priced more attractively than they were at the mid-February peak.
Today I’m adding five stocks to the Casualty List.
Synchrony Financial (SYF) provides private-label credit cards for , Lowe’s, Sam’s Club, Verizon, Walgreens and other companies, serving more than 70 million people in all.
Credit card delinquencies were creeping up even before the trade wars broke out. If tariffs cause a recession, that situation will get worse. Since January, Synchrony stock has come down from nearly $71 to about $44 as of April 4.
Today’s price is only five times recent earnings and six times the earnings analysts anticipate for the next four quarters. Synchrony didn’t exist in its current form during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. But it held up decently through the Covid-19 recession of 2020.