Nine Stocks Taken to the Woodshed

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Economic growth depends upon consumer spending and success from small businesses. Today I profile nine stocks that have recently been taken to the woodshed following negative company-specific news.

It appears that ladies have cut their spending on luxury leather goods while fewer men are adding to their business wardrobes, and that pet owners have their dogs and cats on diets.

Spending on information technology seems to have slowed both on home IT networks and at small businesses.

Yesterday, we learned that advanced Q4 GDP came in with a slight contraction of 0.1% when a modest 1.3% expansion was expected. Attributing to the weaker than expected report were; cuts in government spending, slower exports and sluggish growth in inventories.

On Tuesday, we learned that The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index surprisingly slumped to 58.6 in January down from 66.7 in December to the lowest reading since November 2011. The chart, below courtesy of "dshort" at Advisor Perpectives, shows this index well below the neutral 90 to 110 readings.

This morning, www.ValuEngine.com shows that 62.4% of all stocks are overvalued, just below our 65% warning threshold. All 16 sectors remain overvalued with nine overvalued by double-digit percentages: Consumer staples by 28.2%; transportation by 24.4%; construction by 23.6%; industrial products by 21.0%; finance by 16.6%; medical by 16.2%; retail-wholesale by 15.9%; computer & technology by 15.2%; and business services by 10.5%.

Technically, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has an extremely overbought daily chart, a weekly chart that is nearly overbought, and a monthly chart that is overbought. The Dow has been knocking on the door of 14k solid gold, with the October 2007 all time high is 14,198.10, and the all time closing high at 14,164.53 set on Oct. 9, 2007. My quarterly and semiannual risky levels are 14,118 and 14,323.

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