Every constituent, scored 0–10 on Downside Risk (lower = safer), Growth Quality, and Exponential Potential, with price, YTD, a base-case fair value (and its bear–bull range), and a one-line take. Click a ticker for the full interactive report. ← research hub
◆ Accumulation band for XLB itself: roughly $51–$52 — the index is richly priced, so dollar-cost-averaging on dips toward the 50/200-day average (near $48) beats chasing new highs.
XLB (market-cap-weighted) vs RSPM (equal-weight), both rebased to 100 a year ago. When the cap-weighted line pulls ahead, the biggest names are carrying the index. Past year: XLB +14% vs RSPM +16% — a -2 pt spread, so broad participation — concentration is LOW.
How many of the 1 names are actually participating — a check on whether the index is broad-based or driven by a handful of mega-caps. Right now breadth looks broad.
| Name | Verdict | Risk | Growth | Exp | Price | YTD | Fair value (range) | Entry zone | One-line take |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| STLD Steel Dynamics, Inc. | Buy — Tactical | 6 | 5 | 4 | — | +30.1% | $255 ($150–$330) | — | A best-in-class, low-cost US steelmaker trading at ~13–14× recovering forward earnings after a 2025 cyclical trough, with a fully-funded aluminum flat-rolled expansion as free-ish optionality — attractive as a tactical cyclical into an improving domestic steel market, but it is a commodity business… |
| CRH CRH plc | Watch | 4 | 6 | 3 | — | -13.8% | $128 ($88–$158) | — | CRH is the leading North American building-materials platform (aggregates, cement, asphalt, paving, precast), quietly re-rated by its US listing and infrastructure-spend tailwind: FY25 revenue $37.4B (+9%), Adjusted-EBITDA margin expanding, 23% ROE and a cheap ~8× EV/EBITDA — a genuinely good… |
| LIN Linde plc | Hold | 4 | 6 | 2 | $547 | +28.2% | $545 ($430–$660) | — | Linde is the world's largest and highest-quality industrial-gas company — a genuine wide-moat compounder (FY25 revenue $34.0B, 46% gross margin, 38% EBITDA margin, contracted take-or-pay volumes) — but the market already knows it: at 36× trailing earnings for ~5% revenue growth the stock is priced… |
| ECL Ecolab Inc. | Hold | 6 | 6 | 3 | — | +7.9% | $285 ($215–$355) | — | Ecolab is one of the highest-quality industrial compounders in the S&P 500 — a genuine switching-cost moat, 22% ROE, and a steady margin-expansion story — but at 38× trailing earnings on mid-single-digit organic sales growth the price already reflects the quality, leaving little margin of safety. A… |
| SHW The Sherwin-Williams Company | Hold | 6 | 6 | 3 | — | +8.8% | $350 ($255–$450) | — | Sherwin-Williams is a genuinely elite, wide-moat compounder — dominant US paint distribution, ~58% ROE, decades of dividend growth — but at 33× trailing earnings on ~2% revenue growth and ~9% forward EPS growth, with a 3.0× levered balance sheet and an overbought chart that has *lagged* the S&P by… |
| VMC Vulcan Materials Company | Hold | 6 | 6 | 3 | — | +6.3% | $300 ($225–$375) | — | Vulcan is the highest-quality way to own US construction aggregates — a genuine local-monopoly, pricing-power franchise (FY25 revenue $7.93B, ~16% ROIC, EBITDA margins expanding on price) — but at 36× trailing earnings and 17× EV/EBITDA on a ~6% top-line grower whose demand is cyclical, the stock… |
| CTVA Corteva, Inc. | Hold | 4 | 5 | 2 | — | +28.0% | $92 ($70–$108) | — | Corteva is a well-run, net-cash, #1/#2 global seed-and-crop-protection franchise trading at a full ~23× forward operating earnings on only low-single-digit revenue growth — a defensible compounder whose main 2026 story is a value-unlocking split into two companies, but with the stock already at a… |
| MLM Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. | Hold | 5 | 5 | 3 | — | -3.7% | $620 ($470–$760) | — | Martin Marietta is a genuinely elite aggregates franchise — irreplaceable, permitted stone reserves with durable pricing power — but at ~$599 (~31× FY26E EPS, EV/EBITDA 19×) the market already pays a premium for a cyclical whose organic volume grows low-single-digits; the honest call is Watch and… |
| APD Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. | Hold | 6 | 5 | 3 | — | +27.2% | $315 ($225–$375) | — | Air Products is a genuinely durable, wide-moat industrial-gas franchise (on-site take-or-pay contracts, ~85 years old), but it is a low-single-digit-to-high-single-digit grower priced like a compounder, carrying elevated debt and burning free cash flow to fund a controversial clean-hydrogen… |
| FCX Freeport-McMoRan Inc. | Hold | 6 | 5 | 4 | — | +20.0% | $63 ($40–$88) | — | Freeport owns some of the best copper ore bodies on earth and sits squarely in the electrification/AI-power demand story, but it is a price-taker whose earnings swing with the copper price, the crown-jewel Grasberg mine is still ramping back from a September-2025 mud-rush incident, and at ~$61 the… |
| NEM Newmont Corporation | Hold | 6 | 5 | 3 | — | -2.8% | $108 ($70–$150) | — | Newmont is the world's largest gold miner, now genuinely cheap on cash flow (12.5× earnings, 5.9× EV/EBITDA, ~12% free-cash-flow yield) with a rare net-*cash* balance sheet and a doubled buyback — but the entire earnings surge is a gold-price story on flat-to-declining ounces, the Street's own… |
| PPG PPG Industries, Inc. | Hold | 4 | 4 | 2 | — | +22.3% | $128 ($98–$158) | — | PPG is a high-quality, 140-year-old global coatings franchise trading at a reasonable ~18× earnings — but revenue has gone sideways for three years (FY25 $15.9B, flat), growth is GDP-plus at best, EPS gains lean on pricing and buybacks, and there is zero expert conviction in our KB. A fine… |
| CF CF Industries Holdings, Inc. | Hold | 5 | 4 | 2 | — | +42.9% | $115 ($78–$150) | — | CF is a well-run, low-cost North American nitrogen producer trading at a genuinely cheap ~10× earnings / 5× EV-EBITDA with a fortress balance sheet and heavy buybacks — but the analyst estimates themselves show EPS *rolling over* from a 2026 spike toward the $7 range by 2030, so this is a cyclical… |
| NUE Nucor Corporation | Hold | 6 | 4 | 3 | — | +35.3% | $225 ($150–$300) | — | Nucor is the best-run steelmaker in North America — low-cost EAF mills, a fortress balance sheet (net-debt/EBITDA ~1.0×), and a genuine post-trough earnings rebound (Q1'26 EPS $3.23, a big beat) — but it is a *deeply cyclical commodity producer* with no secular growth, trading near the high end of… |
| MOS The Mosaic Company | Hold | 6 | 3 | 2 | — | -12.3% | $22 ($13–$34) | — | Mosaic is a cheap, well-financed, but deeply cyclical phosphate-and-potash miner trading below book value at a cyclical earnings trough — the balance sheet and the 4.2% dividend limit the downside, but there is no secular growth engine here, earnings are hostage to fertilizer prices and sulfur… |
| ALB Albemarle Corporation | Hold | 7 | 3 | 5 | — | -4.2% | $145 ($70–$210) | — | Albemarle is the world's largest lithium producer emerging from a brutal price crash — Q1'26 adjusted EBITDA jumped 148% as lithium and bromine pricing recovered — but with zero expert coverage in our KB, an earnings model that lives or dies on the lithium spot price (management's own outlook… |
| DD DuPont de Nemours, Inc. | Avoid | 5 | 4 | 2 | — | +16.0% | $141 ($105–$174) | — | This is a brand-new, much smaller DuPont: after spinning off its Electronics business (Qnity) in November 2025 and selling Aramids in April 2026, the "RemainCo" is a ~$7B-revenue specialty-materials company in healthcare, water, construction and industrial — growing organic sales ~2–4% with rising… |
| IFF International Flavors & Frag | Avoid | 6 | 3 | 2 | — | +24.4% | $84 ($58–$104) | — | IFF is a post-merger deleveraging story: a mature, defensive flavors/fragrances/enzymes business that over-levered on the 2021 DuPont N&B deal, took ~$5B+ of impairments since, and is now selling assets (Food Ingredients) to fix the balance sheet — the stock has already re-rated to roughly fair… |
| LYB LyondellBasell Industries N.V. | Avoid | 8 | 3 | 2 | — | +23.2% | $55 ($34–$78) | — | LyondellBasell is a well-run commodity-chemicals major caught in the worst petrochemical down-cycle in a decade — it lost money on a TTM basis, shut its Houston refinery, and is paying a 7.7% dividend it did not earn in cash last year; the stock is genuinely cheap on normalized mid-cycle earnings… |
| DOW Dow Inc. | Avoid | 7 | 2 | 2 | — | +18.5% | $29 ($14–$46) | — | Dow is a blue-chip commodity-chemical maker caught in a deep industry down-cycle — FY25 swung to a $2.62B net loss on falling volumes and prices, free cash flow is negative (−$1.45B), leverage is stretched on trough earnings, and the dividend has already been cut roughly in half; the stock is… |