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Unilever plc is a leading international consumer goods company and one of the largest providers of personal care products. Leading brands include Dove, Lifebuoy, Hellman's, Knorr, and TRESemme. The company is based in the U.K. and has approximately 116,000 employees worldwide.

Stocks have stabilized at midday on Monday after an earlier selloff. Wall Street is reacting to news out of the Middle East, with oil prices and the VIX volatility index higher. The ongoing impact on oil prices and any related impact on inflation are front and center for financial markets as the situation develops.

The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.

Equity investors have been bounced around in 2026, as January kicked off the year with a solid gain, but February gave it right back. Which way will March go? One trend appears certain: the month will get off to a volatile start. Indeed, in the wake of the weekend attack on Iran by the U.S. and Israel, stock futures are lower, bond and gold prices are higher, and the cost of a barrel of oil is on the rise. This type of volatility is really par for the course for March in recent years. The last month of the first quarter had historically been a strong month for the markets -- prior to 2020. But the average gain for the S&P 500 in the month of March since 1980 is now 0.9%, after absorbing the COVID-19 plunge of 12.5% in 2020 and another 5.1% tariff-related setback last year. March is thus below the middle of the pack (in eighth place) in terms of average monthly gains, with a winning percentage of 63%. Generally, March is a quiet month on Wall Street, as the fourth-quarter earnings reports are mostly finished. Without a steady flow of profits to review, investors under normal circumstances would be paying very close attention to economic reports (including the non-farm payrolls report this Friday and the Consumer Price Inflation report on March 11), as well as to the Federal Reserve's two-day meeting on March 17 and 18. The new conflict in Iran will bear watching, particularly if it drags on for more than a few weeks. Absent geopolitics, the market fundamentals remain aligned in support of the bull rally, with low interest rates, a growing economy, and rising corporate profits. We continue to hold on to our forecast for a positive year for the S&P 500, with returns in the single-digit range but below the average of the past three years.