Barron's Picks And Pans: HD Supply, Broadcom And More

• This weekend's Barron's offers a look at why 2017 could be the year of the stockpicker.
• The prospects for an industrial products distributor and a tiny but hot Chinese reverse-merged company.
• Other featured articles offer looks at a "Facebook for stockpickers," and a shrinking private equity stake in an Apple supplier.

"HD Supply Is Set to Build on Recent Gains" by Jack Hough suggests that with infrastructure spending and tax cuts on the horizon, the Atlanta-based industrial products distributor HD Supply Holdings Inc HDS could rise 16 percent and still trade at a discount to the S&P 500. The stock remains attractive because earnings have been growing much faster than the share price.

In "Why 2017 Could Be the Year of the Stockpicker," Vito J. Racanelli points out that with stocks and sectors no longer moving in unison, there will be a premium on savvy investment selection. See why that is something that should warm the hearts of suffering active-fund managers. Also, see why Barron's thinks investors should expect share buybacks to make a big comeback in 2017.

Bill Alpert's "The Mystery Stock That's Up 14-Fold This Year" takes a look at the puzzling reasons this tiny Chinese reverse-merged outfit is the third-biggest gainer on the Nasdaq, with a rise of more than 1,400 percent year-to-date. And yet, the incredible jump in Wins Finance Holdings Inc WINS runs counter to the disappointments in reverse-merged China stocks.

Affiliates of private-equity firm Silver Lake sold 7 million shares of the semiconductor maker Broadcom Ltd AVGO as the stock reached new highs, according to "Broadcom Investor Sells $1.24 Billion in Stock" by Ed Lin. Wall Street remains upbeat on the Apple supplier, after it doubled the quarterly dividend and provided upside guidance earlier this month.

In Andrew Bary's "Facebook for Stockpickers," see why Divya Narendra's eight-year-old social network for investors, SumZero, has 13,000 members, many paying $10,000 or more a year, and some 9,000 long and short ideas. The article includes top picks from the five top-ranked SumZero members, such as La Quinta Holdings Inc LQ and Yelp Inc YELP.

Also In This Week's Barron's

• The final installment of Barron's five-part plan to help save America
• The latest Barron's Alternatives Monthly.
• What to expect for volatility in 2017.
• Micron Technology, Inc. MU's shot at becoming a new kind of tech giant.
• Six small banks that are lifting their payouts, too.
• The 16th annual Barron's forecasting challenge.
• Lodging real estate investment trusts (REITs) ranked.
• A highly regarded analyst who thinks emerging market stocks will outperform developed markets.
• Why technology puts all jobs at risk.
• 2016's biggest policy failures and shameless ineptitude.
• Preparing for the next oil bust.