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T. Rowe Price is an independent global investment manager; it provides a variety of mutual funds, sub-advisory services, and separate account management to individuals, institutions, retirement plans, and financial intermediaries worldwide.

Spun off from eBay in July 2015, PayPal is a technology platform company that enables digital and mobile payments on behalf of consumers and merchants worldwide. It accepts payments from merchant websites, mobile devices and applications, and at offline retail locations through its PayPal, PayPal Credit, Venmo, and Braintree products. PayPal processes transactions in more than 200 markets and in more than 100 currencies, and allows customers to withdraw funds from bank accounts in 56 currencies and hold balances in PayPal accounts in 25 currencies.

Each month we take a close look at an aspect of sector investing. This month, we are examining growth and valuation. Investors hunting for stocks that reasonably balance long-term growth prospects and current value characteristics might want to look at companies in the Financial Services, Communication Services, and Healthcare sectors. These are among the industry groups that are currently selling for PEGY ratios -- (price/earnings)/(growth+yield) -- that are at or below the S&P 500's ratio of 2.4. To generate the PEGY ratios, we use the P/E ratio for each sector based on forward earnings for the numerator. For the denominator, we average the growth rates for the past five years, along with two years of forward estimates -- this in order to achieve a less-volatile earnings growth-rate trend. We then we add the current yield to approximate total return. As an example, the current S&P 500 P/E ratio is 20, the current yield is 1.6%, and the forecast five-year growth rate is 7.1%. The formula is 20/(1.6+7.1) = 2.4. Premium-valued sectors with low growth rates include Consumer Staples and Basic Materials. Based on our analysis of growth rates and valuations, along with other factors, we have established our current over-weight sectors as Technology, Financial Services, Consumer Discretionary, and Communication Services. Our under-weight sectors are Energy and Consumer Staples. Our Market-Weight sectors are Healthcare, Consumer Staples, Utilities, Real Estate, and Basic Materials.

U.S. equities inched higher on Thursday despite regional bank woes and ahead of the CPI revisions that will be released this morning. After hitting 5000 for the first time ever, the S&P 500 closed just below 5000. The Dow also closed at an all-time high. Big stock gainers include Arm Holdings PLC (ARM), up 48% and Ralph Lauren Corp. (RL), up 25%. The S&P 500 closed up less than 0.1%, the Dow was up 0.1% and the Nasdaq gained 0.2%. Crude oil rose above $76 per barrel and gold was up $1 to $2049 per ounce.