You probably use 3M (MMM) products all the time without even knowing it.
They make Post-It notes. Scotch tape. Command strips. Scotch-Brite sponges. Blue painter’s tape. Air filters. Bandages.
But that’s only the stuff you see.
3M also makes thousands of products that businesses use every day.
They make the reflective material that makes highway signs light up at night. They make the bright strips on safety vests. They make masks that workers wear in factories. They make sandpaper and grinding wheels.
They also make incredibly strong tapes and glues that help hold together cars, airplanes, and electronics.
3M even makes materials used to manufacture semiconductors and build data centers.
This company is everywhere.
And now its stock is trading at its highest levels in years:
3M Touches Everything
3M gets a window into all kinds of economic activity.
Its products show up in home construction and factories, in cars and airplanes, and in the electronics and data centers being built today.
Then you have the everyday products sitting in offices, kitchens, and garages all over the country.
That’s what makes this company so interesting.
3M isn’t making one hot product that everyone suddenly wants. It sells thousands of different products to thousands of different customers all over the world.
Its products are used in factories, construction sites, offices, cars, airplanes, and homes.
You could probably walk through every single company in the S&P 500 and find something made by 3M somewhere along the way.
Maybe it’s the tape holding something together. Maybe it’s the sandpaper in the factory. Maybe it’s the reflective material on a sign. Maybe it’s an air filter in the building.
That’s why I pay attention when a stock like this starts making new highs.
It tells us something about a lot more than just 3M.
This Is What We Want To See
We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the strength underneath the stock market.
More stocks are participating.
It’s not just the biggest technology companies anymore. We’re seeing strength from banks, industrial companies, small companies, and stocks all over the world.
Now we’re seeing it from 3M, too.
That’s important because healthy bull markets are supposed to look like this.
You want more companies going up, not fewer.
And you especially want to see strength from companies that are tied to so many different parts of the economy.
3M certainly qualifies.
This company has been around for more than 120 years.
It sells everything from Post-it notes to materials used in data centers and semiconductor manufacturing.
Its products are everywhere.
And its stock has more than doubled over the past three years and is now trading around its highest levels in almost a decade.
That’s not what I would expect to see if everything underneath the surface was falling apart.
It’s another piece of evidence pointing in the other direction.
The market is getting stronger. More stocks are participating.
And one of the companies that touches almost everything is telling us the same thing.
Stay sharp,
JC Parets, CMT
Founder, TrendLabs