As expected, last week was quiet on the news front, but that didn’t stop the market from experiencing its first real bout of volatility. Although most enjoyed fireworks earlier in the week, the market had its own explosive display on Thursday when the S&P 500 dropped a shocking 22 points.

Geopolitical events, partly another missile launch by North Korea, were pinpointed as the culprit. A 12% drop in market darling Tesla also caused some indigestion with growth investors. Tesla announced a major production shortfall. As always, the light trading volume of holiday weeks can exacerbate stock moves so should be viewed cautiously.

We’re in a bit of a holding pattern until the second quarter earnings parade starts later this month. The earliest date for the stocks in our portfolio is late July, but I’ll keep you updated each week with a list of dates for portfolio earnings and investor calls.

I’ve been warning that the market is a bit expensive so I’m not surprised by the volatility and am using these selling squalls as a chance to add great stocks at great prices. There are many stocks I’d love to buy but cannot stomach the price. These names are on a watch list, and as soon as the price gets within my comfort level, you’ll be receiving a buy alert.

This is the case with Supreme Industries (AMEX: STS), which I added to the portfolio last week. You can see the buy alert here. I’ve owned Supreme in the past with great success. The stock got hit this spring due to a hiccup in the supply of a critical component for the truck bodies that it makes for delivery vehicles. It’s an indirect play on the explosion of home delivery via e-commerce.`

I still like the market’s mid and long-term prospects.

Job growth has been just the right speed for a prolonged recovery. Some talking heads fret that wages aren’t increasing fast enough, but I believe subdued wage growth will prevent the Fed from moving too quickly. Don’t be tricked by an uptick in the unemployment rate; this is due to a surge in new people looking for work and is considered a boost in consumer confidence.

Also, the June monthly purchasing managers’ index of manufacturing increased to its highest reading in three years and showed improvement in almost every industry, something that rarely happens.

Around the portfolio:

The Chemours Company (NYSE: CC) was upgraded to a buy rating by Citi analyst P.J. Juvekar who also raised his price target on the shares to $45 from $43. The analyst expects “excellent” regulation-driven growth for fluorochemicals, particularly Opteon adoption. He sees further upside from the regulation-driven replacement of older refrigerants and sees the potential for Chemours to raise its dividend or buyback shares following near-term payment of the environmental liability settlement of $335M.

Smart Sand (NSDQ: SND) continues to pound sand. After a brief respite rising above $9, the stock dropped in conjunction with the 3% drop in oil last week.

Gene Epstein, the highly regarded economic journalist at Barron’s financial magazine, had an excellent article this week outlining the reasons for the drop in oil and the argument for why it is temporary.

He quotes Citigroup Senior Energy Analyst Eric Lee, an analyst who had predicted the oil bear market when it was trading at $100. Lee notes a loophole in the OPEC production cut agreement struck last year that inadvertently led to a surge in production. The cuts were mandated to begin at year end. This delay left wiggle room for producers to ramp up production ahead of that date. These temporary boosts are causing an increase in oil inventory stockpiles but will be short lived as the effect of the production cuts ripples through the market.

Smart Sand will report its next quarter mid-August. My expectation is that the stock will rebound when those numbers are reported. Unfortunately between now and then the stock is correlated tightly to the price of oil. I do think oil is oversold so these two events should send the stock higher.