The Money Calendar is starting to show more and more green as we near the end of March and head into April and, before long, another earnings season.

It’s not hard to see why markets are on the upswing.

Most of what had markets worried in the first half of March is either behind us or fading away since the FOMC meeting last week; most of the Fed governors say it’ll be 2022 or 2023 before they even start to think about raising rates, and the “inflation” everyone was talking about not long ago has turned out to be a non-issue.

The S&P 500 is within a day or so of hitting new all-time highs of 4,000, and the VIX is almost asleep from a trader’s point of view – 19.7 and falling as of midday Monday.

And if that weren’t good enough, Goldman Sachs hit the wires with an outlook that’s so bright you better put on shades to read it. It was predicting 6.8% growth this year, but it’s upgraded that to an 8% expansion in 2021 and 4% unemployment by the end of the year.

It’s basically predicting the biggest post-downturn boom ever.

In other words, markets are looking great for the rest of March and even better for April – time to grab some great stocks and bag some profits…

Here Are the Stocks on My Shopping List

Whenever the markets start revving up like this, people run out left and right to buy stocks, hoping they’ve got the best.

But we can use the Money Calendar to find the real best of the best. It crunches numbers on the top 250 stocks and exchange-traded funds on the market and looks at the past 10 years of price action to find the real buys out there. If you’ve been with me for a while, you know the Money Calendar hasn’t let us down.

It’s picked two financial stocks for us, and there’s no real mystery there, either – the financial sector, as measured by the Financial Select Sector SDPR Fund (NYSEArca: XLF) has run up 41% in the past six months as the economic recovery heats up. A lot of money poured into the financials recently because the market was worried about rising yields, and it’s a good bet that money will stay there and keep piling up in this “fortress” sector.

Jeffries Financial Group Inc. (NYSE: JEF) is a New York–based financial services company with an $8 billion market cap. Jeffries is into some extremely popular, extremely lucrative services right now – just about every moneymaker you can think of – investment banking, commercial and residential mortgage banking, homebuilding, foreign exchange trading (Forex), and vehicle financing.

The stock is trading above every significant trend line you can think of right now. It had a minor pullback to support back in early March and is clearly getting ready to power even higher – at least another six weeks of bullish activity.

The Money Calendar hit on JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), too, suggesting folks should snap up shares of the country’s biggest bank this week.

The chart tells a similar story to Jeffries of a strong stock, comfortably above the big trend lines, but with an important difference: JPM shares are in a pullback now, which makes this a really attractive buying opportunity. I’m not seeing many more “red” bearish days on the Money Calendar for these shares.

Builders FirstSource Inc. (NASDAQ: BLDR) makes the list today… and it makes good sense as a play on the housing boom; we’re currently smack in the middle of the biggest boom in 16 years. It’s not just housing, either; we’re currently seeing record high levels of economic activity related to remodeling, too. Try going to a Home Depot or Lowe’s store on any weekend, and you’ll see what I mean. Builders FirstSource manufactures and sells building materials of all kinds for residential and commercial products, including pre-fabricated components.

Even if we weren’t in the middle of a housing and remodeling boom, the first 90 days of any new presidential administration are usually like rocket fuel for stocks like this, as folks look to spend political capital on – you guessed it – infrastructure. The Democrats currently in control in Washington, D.C., have an infrastructure wishlist worth hundreds of billions – new airports, roads, “green” building, rail transport, you name it. You could probably throw darts at a list of building stocks right now and come up with a winner, but the Money Calendar expects standout performance from BLDR stock throughout April.

CleanSpark Inc. (NASDAQ: CLSK) might not be familiar to a lot of people, but there’s a reason I mention it right after green energy. This Utah-based company is a software firm with a focus on energy infrastructure and a major-league Bitcoin miner. Now, I’m still working on my next Bitcoin forecast, but without giving too much away, I’m expecting huge moves up in Bitcoin over the next few months. That puts miners like CleanSpark in a great position.

The chart is probably the most interesting and unique one I’ve got to show you today:

You can see the stock just notched a big, 22% decline last week. Normally, sure, that’d be a red flag, but the decline came because CleanSpark diluted the value of its shares – selling more than 9 million new ones – to raise around $200 million in cash.

It’s plowing that money right back into the company, though; it’s got a plan to build out its existing capability and, best of all, build and buy more cryptocurrency mining machines.

Any or all of these stocks will make great buys through at least the end of April, but you know me: I’m a big fan of boosting my profits and slashing my risk with options on these. Take JPM shares, for instance; they’re trading at $151 right now, so 100 shares would cost around $15,000. But with options, you can control 100 shares of JPMorgan for $350. It’s a no-brainer.

JPMorgan stock is extremely liquid, with options expiring every week in April out to April 30. The smaller stocks I’ve talked about have options expiring on April 16, 2021, and May 21, 2021; you’ll have to decide what your risk tolerance is when deciding when to end the trade. Call options one or two strikes out of the money could offer big payoffs there.

— Tom Gentile

Source: Money Morning