One look at the performance of the Dow Jones, the Nasdaq or the S&P 500 last week might fool you into thinking the stock market was closed for business. The Dow dropped a bit more than half a percent, the Nasdaq fell less than half a percent, and the S&P 500 was virtually flat.

This peaceful picture shows how mismatched the index averages can be for measuring stock movements. The market continued its bucking bronco behavior with crazed behavior beneath the surface. Most difficult to handle is investors recent increasingly unpredictable reactions to earnings events.

Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT), a mega-cap proxy for global industrial growth (not a Profit Catalyst Alert holding) reported a spectacular number. It beat earnings by 30% and raised expectations for the year by 23%.

You might guess the stock rose. It did. Initially.

Immediately after earnings, it rose 4% but a comment from its CEO noting that this spectacular earnings report was the “high water mark” for the year sent the stock spiraling down. Despite the fact that Caterpillar now looks downright cheap, investors are fearful of owning stocks whose best days are behind them.

Investors are incredibly nervous right now and rightfully so. Global economies have been chugging along for several years now with little inflationary effect. It’s been the Goldilocks world, growth that’s not strong enough to invite higher interest rates but not too slow to drag stock valuations down.

I’ll be doing my best to deliver you profitable trade ideas. I’m excited that some smaller and value stocks are starting to get some attention. These stocks don’t exhibit the same rocket moves as their larger cap brethren but should hold up better during market downdrafts.

I added two new stocks to the portfolio last week and have more ideas on deck for this week.

Earnings dates for our portfolio this week are as follows:

May 1: after the close: Systemax (NSDQ: SYX)

May 2: before the open: Harsco (NYSE: HSC) after the close:  Masonite (NYSE: DOOR)

May 4: before the open: The Chemours Company (NYSE: CC) and Celgene (NSDQ: CELG)

Around the Portfolio:

Old Dominion Freight (NSDQ: ODFL) reported a good quarter, but the stock was dragged down by fears of a slowdown in global economies.

It beat revenue and earnings estimates and guided that each month in the quarter was stronger than the prior one. Expenses were under control, and the company is quite confident on its driver availability (see quote below).

The stock, and almost every other name in the group, got whacked on Thursday. I believe the truckers got hit by some bearish comments from the Knight Swift (NYSE: KNX) CEO on that company’s conference call.

He lamented that fast-growing orders for new trucks are harmful to the industry, partly due to the tightness in the driver labor force and partly because the new supply will weigh on used truck prices.

Mind you; Knight is a different business than Old Dominion, SAIA and Werner. These three names I’ve chosen focus primarily on less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping, which is a part of the industry with more nimble rates and a slightly more desirable labor situation.

Knight is a full truckload shipper, which means longer routes for a truck filled with product from one or two customers. These routes make it tougher to find drivers for those routes and less flexibility with pricing. Also, Knight and Swift are also digesting their gigantic merger from last fall, so are less in tune with the trends for the smaller shippers.

Old Dominion is a top-notch player in the LTL space and has been proactive in hiring drivers. See CFO Adam N. Satterfield’s commentary on driver availability, which has been an issue for the industry:

“So I think we’ve got our workforce in good shape right now with where we are, and our headcount was a little bit higher than our shipment growth, which those two numbers are more closely aligned. It’s the shipments, not necessarily the tonnage, that we’re basing things on, but the hiring decision comes down to the managers in the local markets, they know what growth they think they will be able to achieve, and so we monitor labor to revenue trends very closely, but we want to make sure that we’ve got people in place to be able to make pickups and deliveries to keep freight moving. So I think that we anticipated seeing the numbers, the growth in headcount more closely aligned with shipment counts this year.”

Safe to say, I still like the stock. I would be happier if it acted better, but my analysis of the results show good progress on all fronts by the company.

PRA Health Sciences (NSDQ: PRAH) beat earnings and revenue slightly and reiterated its annual guidance.  

The stock jumped 4% after earnings, partly a relief rally as last quarter the company had noted some cancellations by large customers. Warnings were nowhere in sight this quarter with a substantial backlog dispersed over a wide range of customers.

PRA grew revenue 18% before acquisitions and 44% including recent acquisitions. Earnings jumped 44%.

SAIA Inc. (NSDQ: SAIA) reported a relatively well-received first quarter.  Earnings beat estimates by $.05 and pre-tax profits rose 60% on a 21% revenue jump. After being as high as $71, the stock retreated a bit and closed up just $.25 at $67.

SAIA’s continues to expand geographically by adding new terminals to serve customers eager to ship their products efficiently. A shortage of trucks and truck drivers is pushing rates up. SAIA’s increased capacity will drive earnings higher.

Systemax (NSDQ: SYX), who reports on May 1, was upgraded to Buy at Sidoti who put a target of $36 on the stock. I don’t have access to the report but find it encouraging when a sell-side analyst upgrades a stock right before earnings.