First I’d like to thank all of the Wealth Society members who made it to the Investing Daily annual conference in Alexandria last week.

It was a delight to meet many of you and put a face to a screen name. I consider myself lucky to have such an engaging and charismatic group of subscribers.

If you were not able to make it, please continue to post questions and ideas in the Stock Talk forum on the main page. I love hearing from you.

We’re right on the heels of another earnings season so keep your eyes peeled for a flurry of new trades. I just issued a triple put alert this morning on three consumer product suppliers getting squeezed by Wal-mart. Check out the alert for put purchases on Spectrum Brands (NYSE: SPB), Church & Dwight (NYSE: CHD) and Edgewell Personal Care (NYSE: EPC).

In Portfolio News…

Jazz Pharmaceuticals (NSDQ: JAZZ) jumped 9.5% last week on news of a brilliant settlement regarding a generic version of its narcolepsy drug, Xylem. The settlement allows Hikma Pharmaceuticals to sell a generic version of the drug beginning in 2023. Jazz will receive a royalty on the generic sales by Hikma.

Not only does the agreement remove a cloud of uncertainty regarding the timing of a generic entrant, but it also allows Jazz to collect a hefty royalty stream on those sales.

Brokerage analysts rushed to upgrade the stock.  Deutsche Bank analyst Gregg Gilbert raised his price target to $176 citing the Xyrem settlement. Earlier in the week an analyst at Piper released positive data from a survey with 25 sleep specialists regarding Jazz’s JZP-110 drug candidate for excessive sleepiness associated with narcolepsy.

The feedback “strongly suggests” that existing wakefulness promoting agents and stimulants are inadequate. The analyst said the survey indicates the market for JZP-110 is significant.

After the prior week’s valuation downgrade of Criteo (NSDQ: CRTO) by Goldman Sachs, the stock got more friends this week. Its price target was raised to $55 from $48 by SunTrust analyst Matthew Thornton. After conversations with private ad tech companies, he believes demand remains solid and that Criteo’s first quarter will likely beat estimates.

Put position McCormick (NYSE: MKC) was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JPMorgan  The analyst continues to view the stock as overvalued but notes management “sounded highly confident about current fundamentals.”

I disagree. Management of public companies is notoriously optimistic. After all, part of its job is to exude confidence. I expect continued softening in revenue from McCormick’s grocery store customers to hurt profits. Customer and put position Kroger (NYSE: KR) reports its next quarter on June 15, well before our McCormick and Kroger puts expire. 

New stock position Smart Sand (NSDQ: SND) announced an expansion of its agreement with railroad company Union Pacific. Increasing demand for the company’s premier Northern White raw frac sand requires more capacity to transport its sand to the operating basins of its customers.  This is certainly a bullish sign for Smart Sand’s revenue trends.