Barron's Picks And Pans: Boeing, Citigroup, Zoom Video And More

• This weekend's Barron's cover story offers a playbook for shoring up retirement in the pandemic era.
• Other featured articles focus on Warren Buffett investments in Japan and stocks benefiting from COVID-19 trends.
• Also, the prospects for a couple of coronavirus winners, bank stocks, dividend value traps and more.

Cover story "The New Playbook to Shore Up Your Retirement for the Pandemic Era" by Reshma Kapadia suggests that the rapid return to record levels in major stock benchmarks opens the door for savers to review their strategies and recalibrate their portfolios. Is Prudential Financial Inc PRU worth a look now?

Andrew Bary's "Warren Buffett Is Betting on Japan. Here's How You Can Too." points out that the Oracle of Omaha's $6 billion investment highlights the opportunities to be found in an inexpensive Japanese stock market. Does that include Toyota Motor Corp TM?

In "These Stocks Will Benefit From Covid-Related Trends," Reshma Kapadia shows what the featured investment manager of an international fund that focuses on high-growth companies with a solid competitive advantage likes now. See if Boeing Co BA is a pick?

See why Barron's says a lack of meaningful guidance makes valuing Zoom Video Communications Inc ZM shares difficult in "Zoom Stock Soars Higher and Higher. It Has to Come Down to Earth." by Eric J. Savitz.

In Eric J. Savitz's "Analysts Expect Peloton to Crush Earnings. That's a Test of Zoom-Like Proportions," see why Barron's thinks COVID-19 success story Peloton Interactive Inc PTON keeps right on rolling along ahead of quarterly earnings.

See Also: Stock Wars: Target Vs. Walmart

"Another Reason to Be Bullish About Bank Stocks" by Carleton English makes a case that new loan-loss reserve rules are crimping bank profits now but could set stocks up for a rally once the economy improves. See why Citigroup Inc C is a good bet.

The pandemic forced some mid-cap companies to suspend or cut dividends earlier this year, but attractive earnings yields among the likes of Ingredion Inc INGR bear watching. So says Lawrence C. Strauss's "Mid-Cap Dividends Look Alluring, but Beware of 'Value Traps'."

In "15 Affordable Stocks With Earnings Growth on the Way," Evie Liu discusses S&P 500 stocks such as eBay Inc EBAY and Newmont Corporation NEM that are expected to see earnings growth in the third quarter, perhaps providing a year-end boost.

Also in this week's Barron's:

• The biggest failure of Abenomics
• Social Security strategies to take the sting out of COVID-19 job losses
• Whether the tech sell-off is another dot-com bubble
• Whether fund managers are looking for fraud
• Whether zero interest rates could last for five years
• Activist investors on the attack against poison pills