The market officially entered bear market territory; the commonly accepted trigger for the "bear market" designation is a 20% drop from a recent high, notes Neil Macneale, editor of 2-for-1 Stock Split Newsletter.
Pundits almost universally blame the current bear market on the inflation and increasing interest rates that have been grabbing the headlines. But bear markets have many "causes" and, in my opinion, it usually has more to do with short memories and "irrational exuberance".
When you think about it, the inflation number is just a measure of how fast everything is getting more expensive. During a time of hyper-inflation, shouldn't stocks, like everything else, be getting more expensive instead of less so? I am not the person to answer this question. It's a good example of why economics is called "the dismal science".
What I will do is the same as what I've done during all of the previous bear markets over the last 26 years — pretty much nothing different whatsoever. I'm going to look at all the recent stock splits, add the one I like the best to the Index, and delete the stock that has been in the Index the longest.
For this month's pick, I'm going with A-Mark Precious Metals, Inc. (AMRK) — a precious metals trading company. Its numbers are very good compared to the other recently announced splits; Tesla (TSLA), Kinetik Holdings (KNTK), and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP).
In addition to gold and silver, A-Mark deals in palladium, a metal necessary in several high-tech applications. A-Mark is like any other trading company; they make their money on the spread between the bid and ask price of the item they are trading.
A-Mark seems to have perfected this art to the point their earnings have been consistently beating Wall Street's estimates and are growing at a good pace. A-Mark does not pay a regular dividend but it did pay a generous special dividend last September. We can hope for a repeat this year. AMRK will be added to the 2-for-1 Index this month.
