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Trader creates new stock acronym for coronavirus-fueled panic: 'It's always darkest before the DAWN'

Hotel stocks tumble amid travel bans. Here's what traders recommend with the group
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Hotel stocks tumble amid travel bans. Here's what traders recommend

"It's always darkest before the DAWN."

That might just be Strategic Wealth Partners chief Mark Tepper's new mantra as he looks for stocks that could weather the market's volatile swings amid rapidly rising fears of the coronavirus pandemic.

It's also Wall Street's newest stock acronym.

"Schools are closing. Professional sports are canceling games. Business travel, conferences, now leisure travel — all that stuff's being cancelled, so, everyone's essentially bunkering down and just staying at home," Tepper, his firm's president and CEO, said Thursday on CNBC's "Trading Nation."

With that new reality setting after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus outbreak, Tepper said "a bunker-down approach" to buying stocks could work, too.

"The old saying is, 'It's always darkest before the dawn,' right? So, I've got that DAWN, D-A-W-N, strategy for you," he said. "D is Domino's Pizza. A, Activision for video games. W, Walmart, to get your toilet paper and ramen noodles. N for Netflix to stream your content."

"This is all the stuff you do when you don't want to leave your house, and right now, that's where we're headed," Tepper said.

But those stocks aren't the only ones he'd be buying on dips.

First, as tempting as they may be, Tepper suggested steering clear of widely held stocks Facebook and Google because he expected small businesses to start cutting back on advertising spending on their platforms.

"When it comes to Microsoft and Apple, Apple's still hardware-based, so, I wouldn't be getting into Apple," he said. "But Microsoft looks awesome on the pullback. I mean, it's come down quite a bit. Software should really hold up much better than hardware. So, Microsoft is one that we're looking at buying right now."

Stocks rebounded Friday from their worst day since the 1987 Black Monday market crash. Activision, Walmart, Netflix and Microsoft all surged while Domino's fell. As of Friday, it was still the only restaurant stock positive for the year.

Disclosure: Tepper owns shares of Domino's Pizza, Activision Blizzard, Walmart, Netflix, Facebook, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet and Apple.

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