As we kicked off 2021, we highlighted two top contrarian picks for the new year. Founder and CEO delivered one pick, Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE:SCHW). Six months into the year, the bank stock has delivered a tidy gain of 35%. To access the entirety of the 2021 report, click here. Below, Bernie checked in on SCHW, while looking ahead to see what the stock has left for the final six months of 2021.

With my top pick SCHW trading in the low $50’s as 2020 had drawn to a close, I concluded my comments in the above space as follows: “The May 2018 all-time high at $60 is already within sights – with additional upside potential to the $70 area as the year progresses.”

My bullish assessment has proven too conservative, as the shares soon embarked upon a “take no prisoners” rally which peaked in early-June just above $76. 

While our equity analysis and price projections are deeply founded in technical and sentiment analysis, we believe the fact that SCHW added 3.2 million new brokerage accounts in the first quarter 2021 – more new accounts than all of 2020 – added fuel to the already bullish technicals. We suggest that the retail investor boom is just getting started, and in this regard, we turn back the clock and note another price peak in SCHW – this one at $49.26 in April 1999, back in the days of the so-called “dot-com boom” – a stock trading craze that never approached the level of individual investor market participation that we now routinely experience.

True to this year’s form, the pullback by SCHW since the June peak has been quite modest. And while we do see the potential for a 10% pullback from the highs to the $68-$69 area (further buttressed by support at the steadily rising 50-day and 80-day moving averages), we expect more in the way of all-time high action from SCHW in the second half. Our first upside target is in the $80-area, at which point SCHW would be sporting a market capitalization of about $150 billion and a year-to-date gain of 50%.

Lost in the Reddit-fueled meme stock craze is that the summer doldrums are upon us. When a stock shows up on one of Schaefer's internal metrics, whether bullish or bearish, its eyebrow raising. When it shows up on two, its worthy of a deeper look. When there are three bearish signals, alarm bells go off. With that in mind, let's explore three signals that, if past is precedent, could mean a cruel summer is ahead for Dow stock Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA).

It's been a pretty quiet stretch for Walgreens stock, per its 60-day historical volatility (HV) of 22.7% -- which stands in the 1st annual percentile. While WBA is the second-best Dow stock in 2021 and boasts a 33.6% year-to-date gain, its spent the last few months consolidating below an April 6 annual high of $57.05. Just below here is WBA's 160-week moving average, a trendline with historically bearish implications. The shares have come within one standard deviation of this trendline seven other times in the last 15 years, according to data from Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White. Four weeks after those signals, the stock was higher only 29% of the time and averaged a negative return of 3.4%. Three months out, WB averaged a negative return of 5.5%, with only 33% of the returns positive.

Walgreens stock also showed up on White's list of the worst-performing stocks on the S&P 500 Index (SPX) in June. According to White's, WBA has averaged a negative average return of 0.2% in the month of June over the last 10 years, with only 30% of those 10 returns positive. What's more, WBA is the only Dow stock on the list.

White also dug into equity returns from May 1 to Aug. 31 going back to 2010. WBA's summer seasonality averages a negative return of 6%. From its current perch, a similar move would put the security below $53, and extend the channel of lower highs it has carved out since hitting a record high of $97.30 in August of 2015.

That's three quantitative analyses working against WBA. However, at Schaeffer's we adhere to our contrarian Expectational Analysis principles -- namely, performing an objective review of the stock's technical outlook and sentiment backdrop to find possible opportunities for an options play, and avoiding the urge to "force" a trade where one does not necessarily exist. With that in mind, most analysts are already bearish on Walgreens stock, with 10 of 12 brokerages in coverage maintaining "hold" or "sell" ratings. Plus, the pharmacy giant has been integral in the U.S.' Covid-19 vaccine rollout and will continue to be a prominent player in helping Americans get their shots this summer. Just last week, Walgreens announced it was extending its pharmacy hours in over 4,000 locations to increase the flexibility of walk-in vaccine appointments.

Whether you believe there are enough tailwinds to keep WBA chugging along or that the stock will fall victim to a plethora of seasonality headwinds, now is an affordable time to load up on short-term WBA options. The equity's Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) is hovering right around 25% as of this writing, which arrives in the 6th percentile of its annual range. Likewise, Trade-Alert pegged the stock's 30-day at-the-money (ATM) implied volatility (IV) at 30.4% in late trading on June 10 -- in the low 27th annual percentile, and not far removed from the 52-week low of 23.9%.

Subscribers to Bernie Schaeffer's Chart of the Week received this commentary on Sunday, June 13.

President Joe Biden signed legislation yesterday to make Juneteenth a federal holiday effective immediately. As reference, June 19, 1865 was the day that African-Americans were emancipated as declared by General Gordan Granger of the Union Army. As it relates to the stock market, the Securities Exchange Commission will be closed, the Federal Reserve will be open, and the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange will be open.

While federal workers will be given the day off, the U.S. stock markets will remain open today for the normal hours of 9:30 a.m. ET until 4:00 p.m. ET. However, the major markets and the Fed have committed to reviewing this holiday when finalizing the 2022 holiday calendars for each institution.

Today there is no economic data expected to be released. However, today won't be a quiet one. Today is also a triple witching Friday, meaning options expire, futures on indexes expire, and equities expire.

There are no earnings of note slated to be released today, June 18.

In case you missed it, Schaeffer's Market Mashup podcast is back for another episode, and so is Cboe Global Markets! Cboe's Henry Schwartz and Robert Hocking join Schaeffer's Patrick Martin to discuss the biggest mistakes options traders make when starting out. We learn the lessons they'd give to their past selves (1:33), Rob's top five mistakes he sees options traders make (4:11), Henry's own list (7:16), the broader surge in market participation from retail traders (15:00), and how to further educate yourself (19:25). Schaeffer's Market Mashup podcast comes out approximately twice a month, so be sure to subscribe to avoid missing the next episode drop!

Looking ahead to next week, the third full week of June starts out slowly but picks up pace quickly on the economic calendar. There is no economic data slated for release on Monday and Tuesday will feature just existing home sales data (SAAR) for May. Wednesday will bring Markit manufacturing and services PMI data for June as well as new home sales report for May. The initial jobless claims data will be released on its regular Thursday date in addition to continuing jobless claims, durable goods orders, nondefense capital goods orders, trade in goods, and an updated GDP. Next week will close out on Friday with the personal income report, consumer spending, and the core PCE price index.

All economic dates listed here are tentative and subject to change.

Software name Adobe Inc (NASDAQ:ADBE) is up 0.7% at $547.34 at last check, as it gears up for its fiscal second-quarter earnings report, which is slated to take place after the close today. Below we will dig into ADBE's technical setup, and how the equity has fared after earnings in the past.

Adobe stock started carving out a channel of highs earlier this month to notch a June 14 record of $561.36. Though shares cooled off slightly in the following sessions, ADBE still has the support of the 10-day moving average, and sports a 32.4% year-over-year lead.

Meanwhile, there's a heavy preference for puts in the options pits, suggesting a shift in sentiment could send the security higher. This is per ADBE's 50-day put/call volume ratio of 1.16 at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), which stands higher than 94% of readings in its 12-month range.

Short-term options traders have also been more put-biased than usual. This is per the ADBE's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 1.20, which stands in the 65th percentile of readings from the past year. 

A quick glance at Adobe stock's last eight post-earnings moves shows the stock could go in either direction, as four of those next-day sessions were positive -- including a 17.7% pop in March 2020 --  while four were negative. Additionally, the stock averaged a post-earnings swing of 5.1% in the past two years, regardless of direction/ This is slightly  bigger than the 3.6% swing the options pits are pricing in this time around. 

The shares of Fisker Inc (NYSE:FSR) are up 2.6% at $18.20 ahead of the bell this morning, following news that the electric vehicle company inked a long-term manufacturing contract with Magna International (MGA) to build the Fisker Ocean electric SVU. Building of the vehicle will begin in November 2022. 

The stock suffered a dramatic slide from its March 2 record high of $31.96, tumbling all the way to the $10 level to notch a six-month low in mid-May. The security rallied off this level into June, but found rejection at the $19 mark late last week. Investors shouldn't fret just yet though, the 80-day moving average looks to have caught most of this week's pullback, and FSR is still up over 71% year-over-year. 

FSR could benefit from a short squeeze. Short interest climbed 21.1% in the last two reporting periods, and now the 44.86 million shares sold short make up 32% of the stock's available float. It would take exactly three days to cover these pessimistic positions at FSR's average daily pace of trading. 

Analysts, on the other hand, are mostly optimistic. Of the seven in coverage, five say "buy" or better, and two a "hold." Plus, the 12-month consensus price target of $23.22 is a 27.3% premium to current levels. 

As we kicked off 2021, we highlighted two top contrarian picks for the new year. Senior Market Strategist Matthew Timpane delivered one pick that, six months into the year, has delivered a tidy gain of 43.6%. To access the entirety of the 2021 report, click here. Below, we're going to conduct a little postmortem on FLGT, while looking ahead to see what the stock has left for the final six months of 2021.

Medical device maker Fulgent Genetics Inc (NASDAQ:FLGT) has received quite the revenue boost from NGS (Next-Generation Sequencing) surveillance, which is used to track coronavirus mutations that are integral to vaccine management. Covid-19 testing is bound to continue as new variants of the SARS - CoV - 2 strain continue to emerge. It's a sobering thought, but herd immunity is a long way out, so testing will continue albeit at a lower rate. And despite recent international expansion, many countries still don't have Covid-19 under control.

Fulgent Genetics has a chance to continue to be a heavyweight in the field thanks to its status as a low-cost provider, and the hope is that the success in Covid-19 testing should carry over to other genetic and disease-specific testing segments of the business. One storyline to watch; with a market cap of only $2.44 billion, Fulgent Genetics could be a takeover target for larger companies. With that in mind, lets review FLGT’s prospects for the rest of 2021.

The fundamental backdrop of Fulgent paints an optimistic picture. Over $1 Billion in cash reserves is expected by the end of the year – a veritable war chest thanks to Covid-19 testing. So, another storyline to watch for the second half of 2021 becomes; how will the company deploy it? It's also reasonable to expect Fulgent's revenue growth to  taper off  from the extreme levels it has enjoyed during the last year. Yet, 2022 projections are still at nearly 97%, so there's reason to believe this is not just a flash in the pan.

On the charts, Fulgent Genetics stock fleshed out a bottom after pulling back to its 200-day and 40-week moving averages. The shares recently broke out of a large symmetrical triangle pattern, hinting at a continuation to the upside.  At one point up 252% by February, a pullback should have been expected, as profit-takers stepped in on such a quick run-up. But now with the stock up 44% year-to-date, this presents a unique buying opportunity to get long, or add to your position and trade against the aforementioned trendlines, with that uptrend a convenient stop level. And with a forward-year price/earnings ratio at 6.68, FLGT becomes an intriguing target as a value trade.

Short interest has rolled over from its mid-April peak, and with 30% of FLGT's total available float sold short, a contrarian would look at this setup as a potentially tidy short squeeze.

Despite the recent volatility, FLGT options are reasonably priced at the moment, too per the stock's Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 68%, which stands higher than just 6% of all other readings in its annual range. This implies that options players are pricing in relatively low volatility expectations. 

Today the usual initial and continuing jobless claims data are due out, as well as the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index, and leading economic indicators. 

The following public companies are slated to release quarterly earnings reports today, June 17:

Commercial Metals Co. (NYSE:CMC -- $31.35) manufactures, recycles, and fabricates steel and metal products, and related materials and services. Commercial Metals will report its Q3 earnings of 2021 before the bell today.

Jabil Inc. (NYSE:JBL -- $56.56) provides manufacturing services and solutions worldwide. Jabil will report its Q3 earnings of 2021 before the bell today.

The Kroger Co. (NYSE:JBL -- $37.55) operates as a retailer in the United States. Kroger will report its Q3 earnings of 2021 before the bell today.

Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE -- $543.33) operates as a diversified software company worldwide. Adobe will report its Q2 earnings of 2021 after the market closes today.

Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. (NASDAQ:20.55 -- $20.55) designs, manufactures, and sells firearms worldwide. Smith & Wesson Brands will report its Q4 earnings of 2021 after the market closes today.

The following public company released its quarterly earnings report yesterday, June 16:

Lennar Corp. (NYSE:LEN -- $92.55) operates as a homebuilder primarily under the Lennar brand in the United States. Lennar reported $2.04 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.71 by $0.33. The business earned $5.30 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $5.21 billion.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, there is no economic data expected on Friday. All economic dates listed here are tentative and subject to change.