Philip Morris, Starbucks among new ideas in BofA's Alpha Surprise screen
Scott Olson

Defensive stocks were well represented in the BofA quantamental Alpha Surprise portfolio for this month, with new names outnumbering deletions.
The portfolio's return was +5.7% in November, outperforming the S&P 500 (SP500) (SPY) +5.4%, but lagging the equal-weighted S&P 500 (RSP) +6.7%.
The list is based on an Alpha Surprise score that "is a 25%/75% weighted combination of the decile scores from two proprietary models, our Dividend Discount Model (the value or 'alpha' portion of the model) and our BofA vs. Consensus Forecast Earnings Surprise Model (the growth or 'surprise' portion of the model)," strategist Savita Subramanian wrote in a note. "A decile rank of 1 is most attractive, and a decile rank of 10 is least attractive."
The portfolio is most overweight Utilities (XLU), Financials (XLF) and Communication Services (XLC). It is most underweight Consumer Staples (XLP), Info Tech (XLK) and Materials (XLB), with no picks in Real Estate (XLRE).
Alphabet (GOOGL) is still the stock longest on the list at 62 months.
The additions, including their Alpha Surprise Score where 1 = most attractive:

Huntington Ingalls (NYSE:HII), 1
Excelon (NASDAQ:EXC), 1.75
Arch Capital (NASDAQ:ACGL), 2
Consolidated Edison (ED), 2
EQT (EQT), 2
Progressive (PGR), 2
Air Products (APD), 2.25
Generac Holdings (GNRC), 2.25
L3Harris (LHX), 2.25
Northrop Grumman (NOC), 2.25
SolarEdge (SEDG), 2.25
Starbucks (SBUX), 2.25
Cardinal Health (CAH), 2.50
CF Industries (CF), 2.50
CoStar Group (CSGP), 2.50
Dollar Tree (DLTR), 2.50
MetLife (MET), 2.50
Philip Morris International (PM), 2.50
Fortinet (FTNT), 2.75
ServiceNow (NOW), 2.75

Deletions from the portfolio:

Amgen (AMGN)
Atmos Energy (ATO)
Coterra Energy (CTRA)
DXC Technology (DXC)
Digital Realty (DLR)
FleetCor (FLT)
Fox (FOXA)
Gilead Sciences (GILD)
Lilly (LLY)
Netflix (NFLX)
Sherwin-Williams (SHW)
Simon Property Group (SPG)
United Rentals (URI)

See how Seeking Alpha authors and Quant Rating view Philip Morris.