This is the second installment of my effort to summarize some stock ideas from the week’s issue of Barron’s Magazine. Do your own due diligence and research.
**WY** Weyerhaeuser is a play on lumber prices and the economic cycle. It is down 24% for the year and 33% from the high but this seems to be a trough for both lumber and for WY. If you believe that the current interest cutting cycle of the Fed will spur housing construction over the next 12-24 months, this is a good time to buy. Some down side protection from WY’s 4% dividend yield and significant analyst support, and the fact that WY doesn’t get much credit for the other profitable and growing parts of its business. Article is written by Andrew Bary who is one of Barron’s better stock pickers IMO.
**CASY** Casey’s is the #3 convenience store chain in the US, and considered best in class in their distribution network in the Midwest. The impetus for the recommendation is that convenience stores do better during economic tough times, CASY is a superior operator, and is in growth mode with a plan to enter the Texas market with 1000 stores and increase their store count by a third. Not a cheap stock, it trades at a 30x PE and is near an all time high.
**FISV** Fiserv is a service provider to the financial industry and has had a terrible year, halving its earnings forecast earlier this year citing deteriorating conditions in Argentina as a reason for its problems. It trades for a reasonable P/E of 10. Heavy insider buying is the reason Barron’s has highlighted FISV. A companion piece on the 10 worst performing S&P500 stocks in 2025 includes FISV (and names Chipotle (CMG) as the best bounce-back candidate).
**AAPL** Two items about Apple this week. First, Apple may be the ultimate winner of the AI game because it has not had to spend any capital on its development. If you believe that AI will eventually be a commodity, then Apple may have made the smartest play by using other companies and hyperscalers (rumored to be Google Gemini) to be its supplier rather than investing hundreds of billions into its development. Second, Apple has a hit with the iPhone 17 but it also is currently killing it in growing services revenue, an analyst says. $300 price target.