Want to stay informed with market insights and investing ideas from Morningstar? Sign up for my weekly Smart Investor newsletter here.

This week's highlights:

It was a deflating end to the week for the stock market, with growth stocks leading a Friday selloff. With a 1.95% decline for the week, the Morningstar US Market Index is clinging to a low-single-digit gain for the start of 2025. As we highlight in our weekly market update, Friday's losses were led by consumer cyclical stocks which dropped 4% for the week.

It's always important to put the market's short-term moves into perspective. Even pulling back the lens just one year, we're still up more than 20% since last February. That's a handsome gain. Still, there's no question that animal spirits have faded -- for now, at least. As Sarah Hansen writes, after carving out one record high after another in late 2024, the market's momentum has slowed. What's throwing sand in the gears, and where do strategists think we go from here? Here's Sarah's story.

One of the primary issues at play is uncertainty about key economic policies in Washington, especially trade. What's tricky is that while tariffs can meaningfully impact individual companies and the broad economy, but as Dan Lefkovitz explains in his latest column, trying to game the outcome is dangerous, given the other variables that affect the markets.

The advice often given when it comes to stock investing is to focus on valuations and hunt for quality companies at attractive prices. In the latest Investor Insights podcast, Morningstar StockInvestor editor David Harrell offers up seven attractive names for long-term investors.

Elsewhere, Leslie Norton looks at the raft of interesting issues on the table at this coming week's Apple shareholder meeting. They include high-profile votes on artificial intelligence, child safety, DEI, and charitable giving. For a deeper dive into the changing landscape for shareholder activism, check out Lindsey Stewart's close look at the SEC's new guidance for investor engagement. It's an important read.

While the Smart Investor newsletter generally focuses on public markets, private markets are growing in importance (and accessibility) for individual investors. In the latest edition of his Investors First series, Morningstar CEO Kunal Kapoor is joined by a pair of our experts on private markets. They explain what anyone who is considering adding such investments to their portfolio needs to know.

Lastly, we have our weekly screens for undervalued and overvalued stocks. This week, we have six stocks that fell into undervalued territory, including a household consumer electronics name. We also have 11 newly overvalued stocks, including perhaps the best-known carbonated beverage maker on the planet.