For the past decade-plus, the performance record has favored growth stocks over value. Yet the tide may be changing. In 2025, value stocks and growth stocks had similar returns, with growth advancing 13.8% and value returning 13.6%. More than halfway through 2026, value stocks have climbed 16.8% while growth stocks have returned 5.7%. The post COVID-19 economy gave a lift to some of the cyclical companies (energy and regional banks), and value stocks outpaced growth stocks that year. While growth stocks led for a few years after that, history has shown other instances where value stocks have outperformed. Value stocks tend to be more resilient in times of market uncertainty and higher volatility as they are less likely to overreact to economic news. Another factor, in our view, has been the level of interest rates. If interest rates are high, discount rates will be high, and future profits will be worth less, creating an unfavorable environment for growth stocks. In any event, the value sector is the place to achieve income.

Truist Financial is one of the three super-regional banks in the US, with around $550 billion in assets as of the end of the second quarter of 2026. Truist emerged from the 2019 merger of BB&T and SunTrust. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, the bank has a footprint largely in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast. Apart from retail and commercial banking operations, the bank also offers online and point-of-sale consumer lending, cards, wealth management, investment banking, and other banking services.

Truist Financial was formed through the December 2019 merger of equals between BB&T Corp. and SunTrust Banks. The company now has about $550 billion in assets and ranks as the seventh-largest bank for both assets and deposits in the U.S. The company has around 37,000 employees.

The volume of weekly insider transactions is at a very low level due to trading restrictions in place during earnings season. Some 900 transactions processed by Vickers Stock Research met the criteria for inclusion in the current Weekly Insider report. That compares to about 2180 filings processed only a few weeks ago, when trading was not restricted. Turning to the transactions that did make the cut, the theme is 'better but worse' and supports the neutral sentiment stance that has been in place for weeks now. Indeed, every major one-week sell/buy ratio from Vickers this week is better than it was last week, but not by enough to help the eight-week ratios, which are all worse than they were a week ago. Boiling it down to the broadest readings available, we note that Vickers' Total (all exchanges) One-Week Sell/Buy Ratio is 7.51 this week on a scale where any reading higher than 6.0 is in bearish territory. That's a nice improvement from 11.50 last week. But the Total Eight-Week Sell/Buy Ratio clocks in at 6.31, which compares unfavorably to 5.49 last week. Better but worse it is as we wait for insiders to again trade at will. On a sector basis, five sectors are recording bullish eight-week sell/buy ratios, five are neutral, and one is bearish. Broken down by sector, Consumer Staples, Energy, Financial, Healthcare, and Real Estate boast bullish eight-week ratios. Meanwhile, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary, Industrial, Materials, and Utility hold neutral ratios. Information Technology is the one bearish sector and transaction volume in the sector represents nearly 40% of all activity across the last eight weeks. While transaction volume is slightly more diversified on a one-week basis, Information Technology again holds the top position, representing 33% of all transactions. This week, analysts at Vickers highlighted insider transactions of interest at BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK) and Lifeway Foods Inc. (NGM: LWAY).