(By Jeremy Glaser) Even if it is the largest company by market cap in the world, there was an unusually large amount of focus on Apple (
AAPL) this past week. The stock had its biggest one-day decline in four-years on Wednesday as investors fretted about growth. Then a series of interviews with reserved CEO Tim Cook hinted at the possibility of a renewed focus on TV and revealed that Apple is moving some iMac production back to the United States. And just to pile on, T-Mobile (a unit of
Deutsche Telekom (
DTEGY)) announced that it would be the final major U.S. carrier to offer the iPhone.
The focus of the recent days comes on top of a period of weak performance for the stock. Apple shares have slid 20% during the last three months. But year-to-date performance of a 35% gain still looks pretty good compared with the S&P 500's increase of just less than 15%. In fact, Apple is the biggest single contributor to the positive performance of the S&P 500 this year. Apple (which makes up more than 4% of the index by market cap) represents 1.18 percentage points of the 14.73% positive performance of the index. The next biggest contributor is Bank of America (BAC) which represents 0.45 percentage points of the performance.
The upside of the recent weakness in Apple shares has left them looking attractive, according to analyst Brian Colello. We thought it would be interesting to see if there are other large-cap names that have had a good 2012, but a tough trailing three months, that also look attractive. Using the Premium Stock Screener we looked at large-cap companies that that are beating the S&P 500 year to date, but are trailing the index during the last three months. Sure enough there were 21 names that had Morningstar Ratings for stocks of 4 or 5 stars. You can run the screen for . Below are three names that passed.
Transocean (RIG)
Year-to-Date Return: +21% | 3-Month Return: -1.2%
From the Premium Analyst Report:
Transocean's deep-water expertise has made it one of the best-positioned drillers to capitalize on numerous offshore drilling technology breakthroughs as well as higher oil and gas prices. These changes have led to strong secular trends supporting high levels of offshore exploration and development well into the next decade. Transocean will collect billions from customers eager to exploit large discoveries under the sea floor because it owns the world's largest offshore drilling fleet.
Wells Fargo (WFC)
Year-to-Date Return: +20.3% | 3-Month Return: -4.9%
From the Premium Analyst Report:
Having doubled in size with its 2008 purchase of Wachovia, Wells Fargo is now one of the four largest banks in the United States, along with Citigroup (C), Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM). Wells Fargo stands out from its peers not only due to its long history of superb management, but also because of its relatively simple business model, making it our favorite of the "Big Four" U.S. banks.
Express Scripts (ESRX)
Year-to-Date Return: +20.3% | 3-Month Return: -15.3%
From the Premium Analyst Report:
Following its merger with Medco, we view Express Scripts as the only wide-moat company among health plans and drug supply chain middlemen. We expect Express Scripts, supported by a superb management team, to use its newfound scale to pressure suppliers and drive down administrative costs--creating value for both clients and shareholders.
Data as of Dec. 6.