(This is The Best Stocks in the Market , brought to you by Josh Brown and Sean Russo of Ritholtz Wealth Management.) Josh — In times of uncertainty, people cling to the familiar and retreat back to what they know. This explains a lot about life. It’s why when a family member gets sick, people return to the church or the temple. Partly in search of answers but also in search of comfort. People experiencing tough times return to old friends, lose themselves on Netflix watching old TV shows and, if they get desperate enough, they might even call their parents. Investors are just people so it’s unsurprising to see them behave the same way. This week we saw an eruption of uncertainty following the release of a new AI tool by Anthropic that essentially does 80% of the job of a lawyer. These potentially disruptive product updates are becoming the norm in 2026 and they’re wreaking havoc with some of the hardest hit stocks of 2025 all over again. The software sector has experienced something that has never happened before, to any industry group, according to our research. It has collapsed nearly 30% with the S & P 500 within one percent of a record high. Everytime a new burst of innovation comes out of one of the large language models, the enterprise SaaS stocks get hit all over again. They’re selling them with both hands until the fog of war is lifted, and who knows when that might be? Uncertainty is the absence of confidence and, right now, a lack of confidence is overriding the reality that many of these companies are going to be just fine. Investors don’t want to wait around to find out who is disrupted and who isn’t. Easier to sell. What are they buying? They’re reaching for stocks with less or no disruption risk. Energy, materials, food, drink — ChatGPT and Claude can’t make a Hershey bar. They can’t spin up a trillion cubic feet of natural gas. You can’t type into a box on your screen and have the output be a metric tonne of copper. Not yet anyway. I’ve come up with a term for the types of stocks that have run away with the stock market’s gains this year. They are the HALO part of the market. HALO stocks are heavy assets, low obsolescence. They have risks, but not AI risks. In fact, in many cases, AI will probably enable them to become even more profitable than they are today. So they actually go up as the LLMs advance. I have referred to this as the most important investment theme of 2026 because I don’t think the pace of announcements is going to stop. I believe we may continue to see flows to these areas of the markets as people price and reprice disruption risk throughout the year. So what do you do about it? I am absolutely certain that there are major opportunities being created for long-term, patient investors in the software space. The tickers that rebound, the timing of that rebound – that’s a conversation for another time. In this column we concern ourselves with the Best Stocks in the Market and, currently, software doesn’t rate. And so today Sean and I will be looking at stocks from the Consumer Staples sector, one of the top HALO trades of the moment. We do not regard these stocks as automatic buys just because they’re on our list. Many of them have rallied absent any kind of uptick to their earnings outlooks. A lot of what’s gone on is just multiple expansion, optimism about a weaker dollar, excitement about consumer spending trends overseas and other ephemeral ideas that haven’t yet become manifest in the companies’ actual results. Perhaps that could happen. Or perhaps this is just a good old fashioned flight to the perceived safety of a box of mac and cheese, a can of chicken soup. So while these stocks look incredible, some caution is warranted. Sean’s got a lot to say and then I’ll be back with some risk management… Sector leaderboard As of Feb. 9, there are 223 names on The Best Stocks in the Market list. Top sector ranking: Top industries: Top 5 best stocks by relative strength: Sector spotlight: Staples Sean — The chase is on in staples. Suddenly, staples are the second best performing sector in the S & P 500 up 12.7% YTD – this would be the sector’s best return since 2021 if it ended the year here. Within the S & P staples sector, 94% of constituents are above their 50 day moving average, which is the highest reading since January of 2024. No, this is not a meme stock, this is the State Street Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLP) over the past 3 years: There is a literal monsoon of money coming out of software and into these consumer staple stocks. This past week, Microsoft posted its worst 5- and 6-day rolling returns since the Covid-19 selloff. Looking back further, the only comparable period was October 2008. Admittedly, this is a bit cherry-picked, but the money has to go somewhere, and it’s going into staples. While MSFT had its worst 5-day return since Covid and the GFC, the XLP had its best 5-day period since… you guessed it, Covid and the GFC. We have aggregated all of the staples on our list for you. Josh will get into which charts are not worth chasing and which ones are setting up nicely. Charts not worth chasing: Josh — You know I’m not afraid to buy a stock at new highs. What I don’t buy is parabolic “Empire State Building” charts like this one. Pepsi’s chart is absurd and someone’s going to look stupid when the momentum fades. Wait for a pullback and a more reasonable RSI reset. We do not start new long positions at 85 RSIs. Josh — Almost as absurd. This is an 82 RSI on a stock with a 26 PE multiple that’s about to announce a 5% revenue growth quarter. This means there’s very little room for error. The good news is that Coke has beaten earnings 11 straight quarters in a row. The bad news is the stock has already broken out and you may have missed the move. The earnings report is tomorrow (Tuesday) before the open. For those who are long, I would probably stay long with $73 as my line in the sand (the November resistance level may serve as support on a pullback. Josh — Hershey hit out list as it broke out in early January below $200 per share. Today’s momentum reading makes it untouchable with new money with an RSI in the mid-80’s. And I want no part of that gap given the verticality of the move that came after. Josh — Walmart is definitely HALO, despite the fact that it’s been grinding its way higher for almost a year now. The stock found support at that rising 50-day twice, so that’s your trailing stop as a trader. A violation to the downside could be noise or it could be the end of the rally. I like $110 for investors – the breakout level from late November. Above it and you can stay long. I don’t like it for initiating a new position right at this moment. Charts we can get constructive on: Josh — I won’t personally buy this stock because I think nicotine is the devil, but if you are unencumbered by such ideas this might be setting up for a breakout. We’re going to find out real soon. A break above $185 on volume is probably good enough to take Phillip Morris to $200 without any resistance at all. The $145 to $150 area is obvious support. I don’t want to stick around below that level. Josh — Monster is a monster stock. It broke out again in May of 2025 and it’s been running ever since. That orange line above is the rising 50-day and this name clearly obeys it. That’s your trading stop. Another obvious level for support would be $70 for those willing to give it a longer leash. Josh — Altria is the US version of Phillip Morris, which we discussed above. I don’t like the setup in MO as much as I liked the PM chart. These are both the devil – I don’t care that they’re pivoting to smokeless products like Zyns and vapes – but Altria is the US-focused devil. Anyway, it could be setting up for a breakout but it’s not as clean as PM. I’d want to see the 50-day above the 200-day as a starting point, we’re not there yet. Josh — ADM is also HALO. This is a 125-year old company with 40,000 employees and over $85 billion in annual revenue. The stock typically moves slowly, like a grain field blowing in the wind. It’s broken out this year but without as much conviction among the buyers as we’ve seen in the Cokes and Pepsis of the space. I’d use $60 as a stop. We’ve already seen some consolidation above the breakout level and worked off some of that overboughtness from a few weeks back. I think you can buy it here, collect that 3% annual yield and be patient. Josh — This is a buy. Stop at $136. You don’t have an earnings report til the middle of March. Last time DG reported they crushed the estimates. Josh — Not for me. DG is cleaner. Dollar Tree reports March 4th. Let it get back above its 50-day and then we can talk. The messy charts: Josh — Nope. As the kids say, EL is not it. Josh — Sysco aka The Other Sysco has just made a huge move and is probably in need of some time to consolidate it. It’s definitely among the Best Stocks in the Market on paper, don’t get me wrong. The problem is the way it got here. I want to see some horizontal action in the stock and a cooling off period after this incredibly steep rally. I’ll keep an eye on it for you. DISCLOSURES: (None) All opinions expressed by the CNBC Pro contributors are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, or its parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet or another medium. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE FINANCIAL, INVESTMENT, TAX OR LEGAL ADVICE OR A RECOMMENDATION TO BUY ANY SECURITY OR OTHER FINANCIAL ASSET. THE CONTENT IS GENERAL IN NATURE AND DOES NOT REFLECT ANY INDIVIDUAL’S UNIQUE PERSONAL CIRCUMSTANCES. THE ABOVE CONTENT MIGHT NOT BE SUITABLE FOR YOUR PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCES. BEFORE MAKING ANY FINANCIAL DECISIONS, YOU SHOULD STRONGLY CONSIDER SEEKING ADVICE FROM YOUR OWN FINANCIAL OR INVESTMENT ADVISOR. INVESTING INVOLVES RISK. EXAMPLES OF ANALYSIS CONTAINED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE ONLY EXAMPLES. THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE THOSE OF THE CONTRIBUTORS AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE OFFICIAL POLICY OR POSITION OF RITHOLTZ WEALTH MANAGEMENT, LLC. JOSH BROWN IS THE CEO OF RITHOLTZ WEALTH MANAGEMENT AND MAY MAINTAIN A SECURITY POSITION IN THE SECURITIES DISCUSSED. 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