3 Stocks Bouncing Back Hard

 | Jul 22, 2021 12:30AM ET

There’s nothing like a bit of volatility to shake off the cobwebs and rouse Wall Street traders from their summer slumber. Between Friday’s and Monday’s session , the S&P 500 index dropped more than 3% as fears grew that the global economic recovery might be losing momentum as a fresh wave of COVID cases starts to crest.

The VIX index, commonly regarded as Wall Street’s “fear index,” jumped more than 50% to hit its highest level since May, as investors got pretty nervous pretty quickly. But equities roared back on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 logging a 1.5% gain, and early signs in Wednesday’s pre-market session pointed towards the bid staying strong.

For those of us on the sidelines who are leaning towards this being little more than a standard bit of mid-summer volatility, there are plenty of opportunities opening up.

A relatively safe way to sort the great from the good is by looking at which names are bouncing back the quickest after the brief sell-off. Sure, you might miss buying in at the low, but you can be confident that you’re buying into a stock that the big money and smart money consider oversold. Here are three such stocks worth considering.

h2 1. American Airlines/h2

Unsurprisingly, travel and retail stocks are particularly susceptible to any threat of a COVID resurgence, considering how exposed they are to potential lockdowns. While lockdowns and restrictions have been mostly moving in one direction—that is, backwards—in recent months, the template is there for them to be reintroduced overnight if the authorities feel the risk is justified.

American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) shares have been coming off the boil since last month and dropped a further 10% over Friday and Monday, but ripped higher by 8% in Tuesday’s session. It was only last week that management issued better than expected forward guidance which helped justify an upgrade to the stock from the folks over at Citi.

They see shares treading water above $21 for the rest of the summer, with September being the make or break month for investors to choose to be long-term bulls or bears. Unless you see air travel heading back to the dark days of 2020 again, picking up some shares of American at these levels is a fairly safe move .