(This is The Best Stocks in the Market , brought to you by Josh Brown and Sean Russo of Ritholtz Wealth Management.) Josh — I went to the Jay-Z show at Yankee Stadium Saturday night. He did the entire Blueprint album on its 25th anniversary. The album actually dropped on 9/11 in 2001 and became a sort of unofficial soundtrack for me and my generation of New Yorkers in the aftermath of the attack. It has stood the test of time. I brought my 20 year old daughter to the show. She was born five years after the record came out and was rapping along with Hov and the rest of the stadium. 50,000 people who knew every lyric to every song. Every age group, every socioeconomic class, every race, every religion. Jay is universal. He’s remained relevant and kept the quality up for three decades now. There’ve been thousands of rap albums that have come along over that time, but people keep coming back to Reasonable Doubt; The Blueprint; Black Album; Life and Times; Hard Knock Life. In a world of infinite choice, defaulting back to what you already know is good is also a choice. One of the big takeaways I hope you get out of our work here from The Best Stocks in the Market column is that good ideas are worth sticking with. There is a tendency among active investors to equate activity with edge. The assumption is that good investors are constantly rotating, finding new ideas, staying ahead of the next thing. In practice, some of the best returns of any given year come from doing almost nothing after making a good initial decision. You find a stock with an uptrend and an explicable reason behind it, and then you get out of the way and let it work. The hard part is not the buying. The hard part is the holding. Travelers (TRV) and Delta Air Lines (DAL) are two names on this list that illustrate exactly that. TRV broke out to new highs in February and never once threatened its 200-day moving average during the market volatility that followed. DAL had a sharper test, selling off nearly 23% into March before buyers stepped back in above the 200-day and drove the stock to new highs. Both stocks spent the better part of this year trying to shake out anyone who wasn’t paying attention to the right things. Investors who anchored to price structure instead of headlines got paid. That’s the point Sean and I keep coming back to with this column. You don’t need a new idea every week. You need a few great ones and the patience to stay in them. We will continue to surface new opportunities for you while keeping you updated on the stocks that keep working long after we’ve written about them. In today’s update, we’ll touch on Travelers, which reports Friday, and then we’ll bring you up to speed on Delta and its earnings report from last Friday. Sean’s got the usual high level list details below as well. Allow me to reintroduce ourselves… As of July 13, there are 209 names on The Best Stocks in the Market list. Top sector ranking: Top industries: Top 5 best stocks by relative strength: Sector spotlight: Revisiting breakouts The Travelers Cos., Inc. (TRV): Sean — We spotlighted Travelers on June 11 as the poster child for the next phase of the AI trade —companies where AI is actually showing up in the income statement rather than hemorrhaging its cash flow. TRV is up 12% since then, clearing the $308-$310 resistance zone Josh flagged. The next big test will be earnings this week. TRV reports Q2 on Friday, coming off a great Q1 that featured $1.7 billion in core income ($7.71 per diluted share), a 19.7% return on equity and the seventh consecutive quarter of more than $1 billion in underlying underwriting income. The company returned $2.2 billion to shareholders in the quarter, including $2 billion in buybacks and raised the dividend 14% for its 22nd straight annual increase. A few things to watch Friday: Management flagged that the Q1 equity market selloff hits the alternative investment portfolio on a one quarter lag, so that’s a possible known headwind to net investment income this print. Fixed income net investment income is guided to about $810 million after tax in Q2, ramping to roughly $870 million by Q4. Q2 is also historically the seasonally heaviest quarter for homeowner weather losses, so the catastrophe number might look worse quarter over quarter (this should be priced in). Management’s long-term target remains a mid-teens core ROE and they’re currently running well above it. The bar is higher after a 12% run, but the underwriting engine hasn’t given any reason to doubt it thus far. With rates (and inflation) continuing to stay hot, Travelers will keep raking in the income. Josh — When we flagged Travelers (TRV) for you on June 11, the resistance zone to watch was $308 to $310. The stock cleared it and kept going, running to nearly $350 before pulling back to $338 in the past week. That consolidation after a nearly vertical move is normal and healthy. The 50-day moving average, now at $309, has risen sharply to catch up with price and provides a meaningful support floor well below where the stock is trading. The trend from the September 2025 lows has been immaculate. A staircase of higher highs and higher lows. The RSI reading of 69 reflects the strength of the move without flashing an obvious warning sign. After spending most of the past year oscillating in neutral territory, momentum has shifted decisively to the upside in recent weeks. A reading in the high 60s on a stock that just broke out to all-time highs and is now digesting those gains is not a reason for concern. With earnings due Friday, the stock is sitting about 3% off its recent highs and well above every meaningful support level on the chart. Traders who followed the original call can use the 50-day near $309 as their reference point for risk management. Investors should eyeball $300. So long as the stock is above, I think you can be long. A break below is not definitively catastrophic but it tells you the rally is dead for the time being. The good news is that the 200-day at $294 remains the line that defines the longer-term trend, and it has not been seriously threatened at any point since we wrote this up. The setup that made TRV look good to us in June is still intact. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL): Sean — We first wrote about Delta on Dec. 8 and updated the thesis on June 22, noting the premium consumer thriving at the top of the K. The stock is up 2% since that June update and up 23% since the December write up. We’ve got more to discuss now with Delta reporting its Q2 last week. Adjusted revenue came in at $17.7 billion, up 14% year over year, with adjusted EPS of $1.56 and a $1.4 billion adjusted pre-tax profit. Premium revenue grew 17%, corporate sales grew double digits with premium corporate sales up over 25% and the main cabin posted its second consecutive quarter of positive unit revenue growth. Capacity grew just 1%, which helped drive total unit revenue up 12.4% — that is evidence of pricing power. All around, a great quarter. Adjusted fuel came in at $3.93 per gallon, up 75% year over year, making the $4.4 billion fuel bill the highest quarterly fuel expense in company history. Despite the massive cost increase, Delta reaffirmed full year guidance anyway, calling for adjusted EPS of $6.50 to $7.50, implying roughly 20% growth and $3 billion to $4 billion in free cash flow. Travelers just refuse to stop spending, even with massive cost increases. Q3 guidance calls for mid-teens revenue growth and EPS of $2.00 to $2.50 assuming fuel back down near $3.15. CEO Ed Bastian said on the call that airfares remain 10 to 15 points below overall inflation since Covid and that the industry has no choice but to hold fares given elevated cost structures. Delta finished down just over 1.8% on the day, not a huge response to earnings. Record revenue against record fuel costs with guidance intact is about as clean a confirmation of the fundamentals that we could ask for. Josh — This looks like a buyable pullback. They always sell these airlines on oil price spikes but then when those dissipate, the sellers end up looking jumpy and stupid. This is why we focus on price, trend and relative strength, not people tweeting headlines about ceasefire agreements made with terrorists. As Sean explains above, air travel demand is inelastic currently and fuel costs are now moderating anyway. The stock ran from our original entry area all the way above $90 earlier this summer, then pulled back to $87 following earnings last week. That pullback is worth putting in context. The March correction took DAL down sharply and at one point threatened the 200-day moving average, which was sitting near $60 at the time. The stock never broke it. Buyers stepped in, the 200-day held, and price ripped back to new highs. What we are seeing now is a much shallower retreat from a much higher base. The 50-day moving average at $80 is rising and has provided support on every meaningful dip this year. RSI is at 53. That is a reset. After running into overbought territory on the push above $90, momentum has cooled to a level that historically precedes the next leg higher in a stock with this kind of trend structure. There is nothing broken in this chart. Traders can use $83 as a stop, just below the post-earnings consolidation lows where the stock has found footing twice in recent sessions. Investors can anchor to the 50-day at $80, which is the level that matters most in a trend this clean. A sustained close below $80 on volume would be the first genuine technical warning this chart has issued since March, and even then the 200-day at $69 would represent the deeper floor for anyone with a longer time horizon. I like the risk-reward, 7 points down versus the bull case which is a rally over $100. We’ll keep you posted on this one. 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. 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Josh Brown has stuck with these two names on his Best Stocks list. It’s paying off
