Portfolio Manager Sissons Eyes Laggard Sectors Amid AI, Oil Gains Questions

Darren Sissons, a portfolio manager at Campbell, Lee & Ross Investment Management, is sitting with a puzzle. The year 2026 has been generous to investors—markets are up substantially—but the gains rest on three pillars that feel unstable the moment you lean on them. Oil stocks spiked because of geopolitical tension in Iran. The White House, facing midterm elections, has been spending freely and keeping policy accommodative, a pattern as predictable as it is temporary. And artificial intelligence has generated wealth at a pace that feels almost detached from the underlying economics. Sissons is asking the question that keeps portfolio managers awake: what happens when these three things stop working?

The Iranian conflict created the kind of oil rally that happens once a decade—sudden, outsized, and already fading as peace talk rumors circulate. That retracement, Sissons notes, made profit-taking prudent. The election-year dynamics are even more transparent. A president facing midterms wants to avoid becoming a lame duck, so fiscal spending flows and policy tilts favorable. But administrations change. The supportive environment will not last. As for AI, the wealth creation has been real, but the current growth trajectory cannot sustain itself indefinitely. A slowdown is coming. The question is not whether, but when.

Given this landscape, Sissons is considering a tactical shift—not a dramatic portfolio overhaul, but careful nibbling at the sectors that lagged in 2026. Consumer discretionary stocks, consumer staples, logistics plays vulnerable to tariff policy, and healthcare and medical technology all underperformed while money chased oil, financials, and artificial intelligence. These laggards are candidates for what investors call mean reversion: a return to historical performance levels after a period of underperformance. The appeal is straightforward: buy what is cheap after others have ignored it.

But Sissons is cautious about the mechanics. Large, sudden shifts in portfolio composition trigger substantial tax bills. They also tend to be unwise if they rest on a major bet about market direction or sector rotation. Small adjustments, by contrast, generate better risk-adjusted returns. The move is not to abandon AI, oil, or financials—those may well continue delivering outsized gains. It is to selectively increase exposure to the parts of the market that have been left behind.

His three top picks reflect this philosophy. Mettler Toledo, a global leader in scales and weighing solutions, has sold off in 2026 despite a structural business model. The company generates more than five percent revenue growth annually and has done so for two decades. Its profit growth runs even faster—more than nine percent over ten years, a four-point premium to revenue growth. The company does not pay a dividend but instead runs an annual buyback program averaging three percent of shares outstanding over twenty years. With the stock down, that eight-hundred-million-dollar buyback becomes especially valuable for long-term holders. The absence of a dividend means the stock tends to get hit during market weakness, creating entry points for patient investors.

Alimentation Couche-Tard has grown from modest roots to become the second-largest gas and convenience store operator in the United States, with significant European operations. The company operates seventeen thousand three hundred locations globally, of which thirteen thousand two hundred provide roadside refueling. It is a serial dividend increaser yielding one point one percent, and it has grown revenue and net income at annual rates of nine point nine percent and twelve point nine percent respectively since 2016. A recent acquisition of two hundred thirty-five gas stations from Giant Eagle signals continued expansion. The company also runs a buyback program that has retired an average of two percent of shares annually.

JPMorgan Chase rounds out the trio. The bank yields two percent and has grown its dividend at thirteen percent annually since 2016. More importantly, it has demonstrated industry-leading risk management through multiple crises, most notably the global financial crisis when other banks failed or required government rescue. The Federal Reserve has twice sold JPMorgan distressed banks at substantial discounts—Washington Mutual in 2008 and First Republic in 2023—a sign of the bank's standing as a lender of last resort. Earnings per share have grown at thirteen percent annually over the past decade, and the company has retired an average of three percent of shares annually through buybacks.

Sissons' past picks offer a mixed record. Novo Nordisk, recommended in August 2025 at fifty-five dollars thirty-four cents, has fallen to forty-three dollars eighty-one cents, a loss of twenty-one percent. Tourmaline Oil, meanwhile, has risen from fifty-seven dollars ninety-eight cents to sixty-five dollars fifty-five cents, a gain of thirteen percent. Visa has declined from three hundred fifty-one dollars eighteen cents to three hundred twenty-two dollars fifteen cents, a loss of eight percent. The average total return across the three is negative three percent—a reminder that even experienced managers navigate uncertainty.