Barron's Picks And Pans: Exxon Mobil, GameStop, Intel, 3M, Toll Brothers And More

• This weekend's Barron's cover story offers thoughts and stock picks from the latest Barron's Roundtable.
• Other featured articles examine the cutting edge in biotech stocks, an outlier bubble forecast and growing corporate political activism.
• Also, the prospects for a struggling retailer, a luxury homebuilder, an oil giant and more.

Cover story "Welcome to the Roaring '20s, but Maybe Not for Stocks, Our Experts Say" by Lauren R. Rublin offers thoughts from 10 investment pros on the Barron's Roundtable on how lofty valuations could limit the market's gains this year. The article includes nine stock picks from the roundtable. See if Walt Disney Co DIS is one of them.

Connor Smith's "GameStop Stock Doubled Last Week—But Challenges Remain" points out that Barron's recently argued that GameStop Corp. GME shares looked pricey at $18, but now they are nearly $40. See why the downbeat view on the videogame retailer's stock remains the same.

In "Intel's New CEO Has a Tough Task," Max A. Cherney makes the case that Pat Gelsinger's most pressing issue will be tackling the manufacturing issues at Intel Corporation INTC. See why there is no easy fix for a company that has long insisted on doing things in-house.

The pandemic has reminded people of means that space and amenities in their homes have real value. So says "Why Toll Brothers Is a Play on the 'Single-Family Supercycle'" by Andrew Bary. See why Barron's believes Toll Brothers Inc TOL can build on the housing boom, as the nation's largest luxury homebuilder offers rising returns and a low valuation.

In Bill Alpert's "With Rare Speed, Gene Editing Emerges as Biotech's New Cutting Edge," the focus is on why stocks of companies wielding tools that allow them to edit DNA and attack genetic diseases and cancer are suddenly hot. Are Crispr Therapeutics AG CRSP or Editas Medicine Inc EDIT worth a look now?

"3M Stock Is Unloved and Underpriced. Here's Why It Could Shoot Up Higher" by Ben Levisohn discusses why 3M Co MMM stock could be poised to ride an economic rebound. After all, the conglomerate makes the adhesives, abrasives and chemicals that companies need in order to do what they do.

See also: Benzinga's Weekly Bulls And Bears: AMD, Marathon, Tesla, Uber, Walgreens And More

A renowned investor argues that stocks are too high, the Fed's promise of low interest rates is just a nice story, and Wall Street is always upbeat, according to Jack Hough 's "Jeremy Grantham's Bubble Forecast Is an Outlier. Is He Right?" See what Barron's thinks comes next for the likes of General Motors Company GM and Procter & Gamble Co PG.

In "Companies Are the New Activists After Capitol Riot," Leslie P. Norton examines how recent events have prompted America's corporations, from Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN to Chevron Corporation CVX, to wade decisively into politics with a range of activist initiatives.

Avi Salzman's "The Dow Dropped Exxon Mobil in August. But as Oil Prices Rise, So Does Its Stock" explains why it looked like Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM might have to cut its dividend, but now rising oil prices give it time to cut costs and its $65 billion in debt. Find out why Barron's says Wall Street is giving it a second look.

Also in this week's Barron's:

• The 2020 Barron's Roundtable report card
• Experts on how Biden can fix the COVID-19 vaccine rollout
• How much presidents actually influence the economy
• ESG activists' new focus on diversity in corporate leadership
• What is next now that fear has come to the markets
• What the outgoing administration meant for the economy
• Whether higher dividend taxes for top earners are coming
• Why "bridges" to maximize Social Security benefits should be built into 401(k)s
• How Mexican resorts got creative during the pandemic

At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities.

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Photo by Mike Mozart on Flickr.