3 Stocks That Decided to Skip the Bear Market

It's easy to be bullish on stocks when the marketwide tide is rising. The
real litmus test comes when the chips are down and your holdings are facing a
headwind. Most stocks aren't all-weather kind of names. These three, however,
have defied the odds and overcome the recent weakness. As such, they might be
your best bets for what's looking like a rocky finish to Q3, and an uncertain
beginning of Q4. Las Vegas Sands Sin sells. Actually, it doesn't sell all time
even the recession-proof casinos discovered they weren't as recession-proof
as believed in 2008. The group as a whole is coming out of the rut, though, and
Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS ) is leading the charge. To be fair, LVS did take
some lumps in early August along with the rest of the market. Shares fell from a
peak of $48.74 to a low of $36.08 a 26% drubbing, versus the market's 18%
pullback. That's where the similarities stop. While the broad market has
barely been able to get and stay above its early August lows, Las Vegas Sands
has reclaimed about 80% of the round it lost with that sharp dip; it's simply
an amazing degree of relative strength. More than that, the big move higher has
carried LVS back above its key 200-day moving average line (green) a feat most
stocks can't even fathom at this point. And the near-term momentum was already
in the bullish camp. What makes Las Vegas Sands such as exciting prospect at
this point isn't what it's done so far, though it's what it hasn't done
yet. The recent ebbs and flows have painted a very clear horizontal trading
range (framed in blue), which ultimately will act like a slingshot once the
stock can break above the upper boundary around $48.50. Intuitive Surgical Like
Las Vegas Sands, Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG ) took a hit like most stocks
did in early August, sliding from a peak of $408 to a low of $322 (-21%) in just
a two-week span. It's what's happened in the meantime that bodes so well for
this surgical systems manufacturer. After the dust settled from the initial
rout, ISRG begin rebuilding, beginning with the help of support at its 200-day
moving average line (green). Since then, the broad market has suffered two more
setbacks. Intuitive Surgical half-heartedly mirrored the first one but
completely skipped last week's dip. Again, that kind of relative strength pays
off when things are at their darkest. As for what this means on a
forward-looking basis, the brush with the 200-day average line acts as something
of a reset for this chart's bullishness. And, that's a good thing ISRG has
a solid history with crosses (above as well as below) of the 200-day moving
average line.