Erik Isakson/DigitalVision via Getty Images The S&P 500 is expected to grow earnings by a whopping 23% this year. One of the best quarterly reporting periods in recent memory has resulted in a reasonable market P/E ratio, but not all areas have seen intense upward profit revisions. Today, I’m downgrading the Global X US Infrastructure Development ETF ( PAVE ). I’ve had a buy rating on this highly ...
Erik Isakson/DigitalVision via Getty Images The S&P 500 is expected to grow earnings by a whopping 23% this year. One of the best quarterly reporting periods in recent memory has resulted in a reasonable market P/E ratio, but not all areas have seen intense upward profit revisions. Today, I’m downgrading the Global X US Infrastructure Development ETF ( PAVE ). I’ve had a buy rating on this highly cyclical and growth-sensitive domestic equity ETF since early 2025 . Gains have been strong, and PAVE has outperformed the S&P 500 over the past 12 months. But I now view the 24x P/E as too much to overcome, while the technicals point to the real risk of a moderate pullback. I’ll note later, however, that seasonality is bullish. PAVE Sharply Beating the S&P 500 YoY StockCharts.com According to the issuer , "PAVE seeks to invest in companies that stand to benefit from a potential increase in infrastructure activity in the United States, including those involved in the production of raw materials, heavy equipment, engineering, and construction. The fund invests in growth and value stocks across a diversified range of market caps." PAVE is a large ETF, now with $13.6 billion in assets under management as of May 8, 2026. That’s up a significant $3.7 billion from the time of my December 2025 analysis . With the fund up 18% since late in the fourth quarter of last year, PAVE’s annual expense ratio is moderate at 47 basis points, while the trailing 12-month dividend yield is low at just 77 basis points, about 0.4 percentage points below that of the S&P 500. Share-price momentum has been very strong lately, earning the product a pristine A ETF Grade in that category by Seeking Alpha’s quantitative scoring system. I am also encouraged to see that its ETF Risk Grade has improved markedly from a D six months ago to a B- today. Its realized volatility levels have held in check, while the Industrials and Materials-heavy allocation hasn’t experienced tremendous drawdowns in recent months...
Richard Drury/DigitalVision via Getty Images On February 19th of this year, I decided to take a fresh look at Provident Financial Services ( PFS ). Historically, it has been an interesting prospect. Lately, management has achieved some attractive growth for the business. And when you factor into that asset quality and its valuation, I made the case in that article that reaffirming it as a 'buy' ca...
Richard Drury/DigitalVision via Getty Images On February 19th of this year, I decided to take a fresh look at Provident Financial Services ( PFS ). Historically, it has been an interesting prospect. Lately, management has achieved some attractive growth for the business. And when you factor into that asset quality and its valuation, I made the case in that article that reaffirming it as a 'buy' candidate made sense at that time. Since then, we have seen shares dip about 1.4% while the S&P 500 is up 6.8%. But the good news is that, even though it has underperformed the market recently, it still remains a strong performer since I originally turned bullish on it in February of 2024. From that time through today, shares are up 62.9%. That's meaningfully higher than the 44.1% increase that the S&P 500 saw over the same window of time. Looking at the data that's available now, which covers only one additional operating quarter, I see a firm that remains high quality. We have seen a bit of weakness when it comes to the balance sheet. But pretty much everything else about the institution is looking up. Asset quality is robust, and shares are cheap. Combined, this makes the company a compelling candidate. So even though the market has disagreed with me in recent months, I believe that reaffirming it as a 'buy' candidate is the appropriate choice here. I'm Not Ready to Stop Banking on Provident Financial Services By most metrics, I would say that Provident Financial Services is doing a fine job right now. But that doesn't mean that every metric is doing well. For instance, recently, we have seen deposits drop from $19.28 billion to $19.10 billion. This is from the end of 2025 through the first quarter of this year . The good news is that some of this decline in deposits was driven by lower brokered deposits. These are high-cost deposits that are borrowed from other financial institutions. And according to management, these declined $125.3 million in the course of three months...