If you were looking to buy a company, what would it be? How about Shake Shack or Instacart? This isn't a Christmas in July wish list -- neither company is up for sale. But both could be appealing for investors looking to cash in on this year's record first-half merger boom, with $2.6 trillion worth of deals. The key: stocks that attract acquirers but will do fine if they remain independent.

Wolfe Research Chief Investment Strategist Chris Senyek and his team run monthly screens to identify possible targets. One searches for small and midsize companies that have reported sales growth of at least 10% over the past 12 months and are expected to post double-digit top-line gains for the next 12 months. Some well-known consumer names made the list, including Dutch Bros, CAVA Group, Shake Shack, Texas Roadhouse, and Instacart. Fintechs Lemonade, Dave, and Toast also made the cut.

None of these companies is on the shopping block per se. They have healthy prospects and buyers should be in acquisitive moods thanks to stock-market gains. "We expect M&A to remain strong as strategic buyers look to support growth and/or companies look to cash in on potentially inflated stock prices," Senyek and his team wrote.

Brand-name consumer companies have already seen some notable deals this year, while financials are seeking new revenue streams, and pharma has been buying this year to bolster pipelines -- Senyak's screen included a number of biotechs. As EY's global services leader Omar Ali says, "We expect a pickup in dealmaking [in the second half],"particularly among banks, insurers, and asset managers.

Write to Paul R. La Monica at paul.lamonica@barrons.com

Last Week

Markets

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz increased, oil prices fell, and U.S. stocks rose broadly on Monday. But after a Qatari liquid-natural-gas tanker was hit as it was leaving the strait and the U.S. revoked sale of Iranian oil, tit-for-tat strikes resumed, oil rose, and stocks flagged. President Donald Trump announced at the NATO summit that the cease-fire was "over," and the selloff accelerated. (He also revived his demand for Greenland.) Tech rallied on Thursday and Friday. On the week, the Dow industrials lost 0.5%, the S&P 500 was up 1.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite 1.7%.

Companies

SpaceX joined the Nasdaq 100. Samsung Electronics' operating profit rose 19 times in the second quarter, but shares fell 8%. South Korean counterpart SK Hynix listed on the Nasdaq and raised $26.5 billion; shares rallied on Friday. Apple said it would buy $30 billion of Broadcom chips over five years.

Deals

Honeywell spinoff Solstice Advanced Materials said it was buying Element Solutions for $14.5 billion... Vertex Pharmaceuticals will acquire Crinetics Pharmaceuticals for $10 billion...Apollo Global's $7.6 billion bid topped Castlelake's offer for U.K. discount airline easyJet... Comcast's Sky agreed to buy the U.K.'s ITV for $2.1 billion... Lockheed Martin is acquiring Ultra Maritime from private-equity firm Advent, for $3.5 billion... UniCredit took a 47.6% stake in Commerzbank after the European Central Bank gave approval for it to go above 30%.

Next Week

Tuesday 7/14

Second-quarter earnings season commences with results from the financial sector.

Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo all report on Tuesday, followed by Bank of New York Mellon, BlackRock, and Morgan Stanley on Wednesday. State Street and U.S. Bancorp announce earnings on Thursday, while Travelers and Truist Financial close out the week on Friday.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the consumer price index for June. Economists forecast a 3.8% year-over-year increase, four-tenths of a percentage point less than in May. Core CPI, which strips out food and energy prices, is expected to rise 2.8%, compared with 2.9% a month earlier.

Wednesday 7/15

Megacap companies reporting quarterly results include ASML Holding and Johnson & Johnson Wednesday and GE Aerospace, Netflix, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and UnitedHealth Group on Thursday.

Thursday 7/16

The Census Bureau reports retail sales data for June. Consensus estimate is for a 0.3% month-over-month increase, after a 0.9% jump in May.

The Numbers

$5.7 T

Estimated U.S. health spending in 2025, up 7.3% from a year earlier.

Projections for 2034:   nearly $9 trillion. 

$228 B

Germany's goal for increased military spending by 2030, amounting to a third of its federal budget.

157 K

Estimated shortage of skilled full-time workers needed to build and run new U.S. chip fabs by 2030.

11%

The percentage of adult Americans who are taking GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, up from 3% in 2024.

Write to Robert Teitelman at robrt.teitelman@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 10, 2026 19:41 ET (23:41 GMT)

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