Investors are shopping for retail stocks.

The XRT, an ETF that tracks the sector, is up nearly 10 percent this year, and is tracking for its best quarter since 2014. Despite the move higher, two experts said there are still bargain buys within the space.

“One name that really sticks out in retail land is Columbia Sportswear,” Ari Wald, head of technical analysis at Oppenheimer, said Thursday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.” Last month the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that handily beat analyst expectations, leading to a nearly 16 percent surge in the stock the following day. The move higher eclipsed the $96 mark — which had previously been a key level of resistance, according to Wald — and the stock has been trading in the $100-$105 region ever since.

Wald notes that technicians call this a bullish flag pattern (so named since the vertical jump higher followed by a continuation of trading in that range can resemble a flag poll), and he believes the stock’s slight pullback this week is a buying opportunity.

“[W]e think this little near-term pullback should be bought in anticipation for a resumption of that breakout and a longer-term uptrend that’s still in play,” he said. Shares of the sportswear maker are up roughly 25 percent this year.

While Wald likes Columbia Sportswear, he cautions on buying the sector as a whole. Retail has been “range-bound in recent months,” he said, also pointing out that “over the last five years it’s been in the same price range.” So as a result, Wald believes “there are more attractive opportunities for funds at the industry level.”

On the flip side, John Petrides, managing director and portfolio manager at Point View Wealth Management, is more optimistic on the future of retail since he believes companies recognize threats to the industry — especially the rise of e-commerce — and are changing accordingly.

“[B]y and large many of the retailers have adjusted. They’re building out their online presence, they’re cutting their square-footage growth, they’re slowing their store space store openings, so they’re living in the new world that they’re in, and they’re now able to thrive, or at least grow at a new normal,” he said.

Petrides also thinks that the economic backdrop of low unemployment coupled with wage growth will continue to spur gains for the sector.

He specifically likes Hanesbrands. The stock has been on a tear this year, soaring 41 percent, but the move higher follows a dismal 2018 that saw the name drop 40 percent. It’s still more than 20 percent away from its June 52-week high, and Petrides contends that strong fundamentals will propel it higher.

“[H]ere’s a stock that dominates the industry that it’s in. … trading at less than 10 times earnings, less than one times price to sales. Currently offers a 3.5 percent dividend yield and based on [the] company’s projections and current prices should have about a 10 percent free cash flow yield, so we think that’s an attractive stock to own in this environment,” Petrides said.

Disclosure: Point View Wealth Management and John Petrides or someone in his household own shares of Hanesbrands.

The first quarter has been a banner period for Wall Street.

The S&P 500 is up more than 12 percent this quarter and is on pace to notch its best start to a year since 1998. The broad index is also set to post its biggest one-quarter gain since 2009.

Accompanying the S&P 500 in its ride high to start off 2019 are the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq Composite and the Russell 2000, which tracks small-cap stocks. The 30-stock Dow is up over 10 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq has rallied more than 15 percent. The small-caps Russell is up nearly 14 percent.

Leading the way higher for U.S. stocks this quarter was the tech sector, which is up nearly 20 percent in the period. Tech giants Apple and Microsoft — two of the biggest publicly traded U.S. companies — rose more than 15 percent each for the quarter, but the sector’s best performer is an unlikely stock: Xerox. Shares of the copy and fax machine maker are up more than 60 percent to start off the year. They are also among the best-performing stocks in the entire S&P 500.

Other top-performing sectors include real estate, energy and industrials. Real estate got a boost from lower interest rates, while higher oil prices boosted energy. Meanwhile, optimism around U.S.-China trade negotiations lifted industrials.

Not every sector performed as well, however. Health care and financials are the biggest laggards among S&P 500 sectors, rising around 5 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

At the individual stock level, cosmetics giant Coty and fast-casual restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill are the best-performers, followed by Xerox, Hess and Xilinx. Kraft Heinz, Biogen and CenturyLink rang up the rear, as they all fell around 20 percent.

Global stocks also performed well this quarter, with Irish shares surging more than 26 percent, more than doubling the S&P 500’s performance year to date. Stocks in Greece, Italy and Canada also rose more than 12 percent each. Japan’s Nikkei index is up more than 5 percent along with Indian stocks, lagging their global counterparts.

Stocks weren’t the only assets to do well in the first quarter, however.

Lean hog futures surged around 50 percent this quarter, while gasoline and U.S. crude oil futures are both up more than 25 percent. Coffee, wheat and cocoa futures fell sharply this quarter, sliding at least 6 percent.

—CNBC’s Gina Francolla, Chris Hayes and John Schoen contributed to this report.

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You don’t need a million dollars to live a luxurious retirement — so long as you’re willing to leave the United States behind.

“Most people assume that a high-flying existence like that is the purview of the rich and famous alone,” said Jennifer Stevens, the executive editor of International Living.

They’re wrong, Stevens said.

The website for expatriates is out with a list of “5 Places to Live Like the Rich and Famous…Without their Bank Balance.”

Around 680,000 Americans currently receive their Social Security checks at a foreign addresses, yet the number of retirees abroad is likely higher since many people keep their U.S. bank account.

Here are the five destinations.

Federal Reserve Governor Randal Quarles voiced confidence in the U.S. economy in a speech Friday and said more interest rate hikes likely will be appropriate, countering the prevailing market wisdom.

Speaking to economists in New York, Quarles, who is the central bank’s vice chair for supervision, said the labor market looks strong and productivity is improving. At the same time, he was largely dismissive of recent data that showed a slowdown in nonfarm payrolls creation and weak consumer spending.

“In regard to policy, I am very comfortable remaining patient at this point and monitoring the incoming data,” he said, echoing the Fed’s most recent policy statement. “That said, my sense is that further increases in the policy rate may be necessary at some point, a stance I believe is consistent with my optimistic view of the economy’s growth potential and momentum. In the language of central banking, my estimate of the neutral policy rate remains somewhat north of where we are now.”

The remarks come nine days after the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee voted to hold rates steady and indicated that no additional increases are likely this year.

However, in recent days several Fed officials have said that talk about rate cuts is premature. Current market pricing is for the first cut to come as soon as September, with about a 25 percent chance of another decrease before the end of 2019.

The Fed’s policy funds rate is currently set in a range between 2.25 percent and 2.5 percent. Quarles’ belief that the “neutral level” that is neither stimulative nor restrictive on growth is significant. When Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in October that the FOMC was “a long way” from neutral, it set off a violent sell-off on Wall Street.

President Donald Trump, who nominated Quarles, has been harsh on the Fed, saying the pattern of rate hikes, including four in 2018, have hampered an otherwise strong economy.

Quarles acknowledged that “growth has slowed, at least temporarily,” as shown in recent data.

“That said, I remain optimistic about the outlook for the U.S. economy, and I think that we have the potential to maintain growth at a healthy pace in the years ahead,” he said.

“Looking past the near-term data, I see many reasons to expect relatively strong growth in the coming years, supported by gains in the productive capacity of the economy,” he added.

The comments were to the Shadow Open Market Committee, a group of economists who monitor Fed activity and gather to recommend policy approaches.

While veering from the notion that the Fed is on indefinite hold, Quarles said the central bank should be data dependent in its decision-making. However, he qualified that by saying that it shouldn’t make decisions based on only isolated metrics.

“I prefer a framework where we make it clear that we are focused on broad trends–elsewhere I have used the aviation analogy that we should not ‘chase the needles’ on the instrument panel. We should be clear that, while we will respond to clear and durable evolution in these broad trends, we are not reacting to every piece of volatile data,” he said.

“Farmers and ranchers are very resilient and will try to survive,” he said. “But they might figure out in a year or two that there’s just no way to come back from a loss like this.”

Some of the damage is to corn and soybeans that farmers had in storage this year as they ride out the U.S.-China trade war. One farmer in southwestern Iowa reported having flooded bins and grain valued at about $900,000.

According to Iowa officials, most of the grain exposed to floodwaters this month is not insured.

That said, farmers and ranchers with livestock deaths might be eligible to receive assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency. The department also provides loans to help producers recover from flooding.

Iowa’s governor projected the total impact statewide at $1.6 billion, including damage to more than 23,000 structures.

The initial estimate for Iowa’s agriculture-related damages is $214 million, according to Kelly Coppess, a representative for the state’s Department of Agriculture. “We’ll know more after the water recedes and farmers have the opportunity to assess their properties,” she said in an email.

The recent flooding and storms also idled grain processing operations in Nebraska and slowed rail and truck transportation.

Archer Daniels Midland, a major processor of agricultural commodities, said Monday weather impacts would cause negative pretax operation impact to the company of $50 million to $60 million for the first quarter.

On Thursday, crop protection and seed company DowDuPont warned first-quarter results would be negatively affected due to transportation disruptions in the Midwest region that “halted farming operations, limited the ability to deliver products to customers, and delayed pre-season application.”

The Senate this week debated a $13 billion federal aid package that includes money for the Midwest, but one sticking point has been President Donald Trump‘s opposition to more funding for hurricane-battered Puerto Rico.

Earlier this month, the president issued major disaster declarations for severe storms and flooding in Nebraska and Iowa.

Flooding caused extensive damage to infrastructure, including rural roads, bridges and levees. The Army Corps of Engineers this week identified at least 52 breaches of levees on the Missouri, Platte and Elkhorn rivers.

“Areas where we’ve lost levees may not be able to be farmed because we’re going to have repeat floods until those levees are repaired,” said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the USDA. He said the crops impacted are predominantly corn and soybeans.

Shares RH, the company formerly known as Restoration Hardware, plunged nearly 19 percent Friday morning after it cut its 2019 forecast, suggesting that the company’s new strategy will take longer to pay off than originally expected.

Late Thursday, RH posted its fiscal fourth-quarter results, which were mixed as revenue fell short of expectations.

The high-end retailer has been shifting to position itself as a luxury lifestyle brand and dropped “Hardware” from its name in 2017. In order to create a more welcoming shopping environment it has been opening so-called RH Galleries, which are expansive museum-style stores.

The company’s strategy of initially focusing on experience rather than profit may have contributed to the mixed earnings, while RH also cited the downturn in the high-end housing market, which has weighed on demand for its products.

RH said it will continue to reshape the company and promote it as a high-end lifestyle brand, saying “Leaders have to comfortable making others uncomfortable.”

“We also believe, ‘We have to think until it hurts, until we can see what others can’t see, so we can do what others can’t do,’” said RH CEO Gary Friedman in a letter to investors. Instead of moving to a digital-first model, it said, RH will continue to focus on its physical retail locations.

“Speaking of profitability, which is surprisingly absent in the narrative of most retail businesses that are birthed online, we believe what many have overlooked is that the cost of marketing an invisible store is proving to be more expensive than physical experiences,” it said.

RH also noted disappointing fourth-quarter results of Waterworks, the luxury kitchen and bath brand RH acquired in 2016. Its performance forced RH to take additional impairment charges.

“While the acquisition has been financially disappointing, causing a 70 basis point drag to our operating margins, we plan to take aggressive steps to refocus … and still believe in the potential long term synergies and value creation,” it said.

In the latest period, RH net income rose to $36.1 million, or $1.41 per share, from about $261,000 or a penny per share, a year ago. Excluding an impairment charge for Waterworks, RH earned $3 per share, beating Refinitiv estimates of $2.86.

Revenue, however, inched up only slightly to $670.9 million from $670.3 million a year ago, and was below estimates of $686.3 million.

The company now expects 2019 earnings on an adjusted basis to be between $8.41 and $9.08 per share on sales of $2.59 billion to $2.64 billion. Previously, the company expected to earn between $9.30 and $10.70 per share on sales of $2.72 billion to $2.82 billion a year ago.

Deutsche Bank downgraded RH to hold from buy following the earnings report, but other analysts are standing by the retailer. Wells Fargo kept RH as outperform.

Wells Fargo analysts expected shares to open lower on Friday but said, “We believe the headline appears worse than the reality.”

RH shares, which have a market value of $2.3 billion, have gained more than 43 percent over the past year, but are only up 10 percent since January.

Apple’s AirPower charger has been cancelled, Apple confirmed on Friday.

“After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project. We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward,” said Dan Riccio, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering in a statement. 

AirPower was first announced in 2017 alongside the iPhone X and iPhone 8, the first Apple phones to support wireless charging. At the time, Apple said it would launch in 2018.

AirPower was planned to be a wireless charger for Apple products that allowed users to fill up their batteries by simply placing their device on the mat.

However, Apple users can still wirelessly charge their phones using charging mats from other makers that use the Qi wireless charging standard.

A new version of AirPods with wireless charging capability was released this week. Its packaging mentioned AirPower.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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As consumers grow more environmentally conscious and ditch single-use plastics, companies have responded by working to incorporate more recycled materials into their plastic packaging.

Those consumer companies, however, face a “fundamental issue” — a lack of plastic recycling policies in their countries, according to Credit Suisse’s head of environmental, social and governance research for Australia.

“The (fast moving consumer goods companies’) response is really focusing on recycled content — they’ve set targets globally, to achieve at least 30 percent recycled content in all their plastic packaging,” Phineas Glover told CNBC at the Credit Suisse Asian Investment Conference in Hong Kong on Thursday.

Referring to overall plastic waste, he said: “Some of it we just can’t recycle at the moment … Many nations just haven’t developed their own plastic recycling policies.”

Adding to that problem is the ban that China put on waste imports globally.

A single ticket sold in Wisconsin matched all six numbers in the Wednesday night Powerball drawing to win the third-largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history. Due to strong ticket sales, the jackpot climbed to an estimated $768.4 million at the time of the drawing with a cash option of $477 million.

Powerball said the winning numbers are 16, 20, 37, 44, 62 and the Powerball number is 12.

The $768.4 million is the third-largest behind the world record $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot shared by winners in California, Florida and Tennessee in January 2016, and the $1.537 billion Mega Millions jackpot won in South Carolina last October.

“It’s going to be a very green spring for our first Powerball jackpot winner of 2019,” David Barden, Powerball Product Group chairman and New Mexico Lottery CEO, said in a statement. “A jackpot of this size can make many dreams come true – not just for the winner, but for all Lottery beneficiaries and the lucky state of Wisconsin.”

Although the prize has grown steadily since the last jackpot winner on Dec. 26, the odds of matching the five white balls and single Powerball remain one in 292.2 million.

The $768.4 million estimated figure refers to the annuity option, paid over 29 years. Nearly all grand prize winners opt for the cash prize, which for Wednesday’s drawing would be an estimated $477 million. Both prize options are before taxes.

Seven tickets matched all five white balls, but missed matching the red Powerball in Wednesday’s drawing to win a $1 million prize. Those tickets were sold in Arizona, two in California, Indiana, Missouri, New Jersey and New York. Two other tickets, sold in Kansas and Minnesota, matched all five white balls and doubled the prize to $2 million, because the tickets included the Power Play option for an additional $1.

Powerball is played in 44 states, plus Washington, D.C., the U.S Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

Shares of Jack in the Box, Adobe and FireEye have reached valuations that could be attractive for investors, according to several analysts.

CNBC combed through company research to find analysts from different industries singling out stocks in their coverage universes. Other names cited this week as compelling to investors include IHS Markit and Conduent.

Fast-food chain Jack in the Box is improving same-store sales with an increasingly aggressive value promotion, said Gordon Haskett analyst Jeff Farmer. “We’re upgrading JACK to Buy from Hold with the stock’s valuation discount bumping up against multi-year highs, offering a compelling risk/reward profile,” Farmer wrote this week in a note to clients.

“We expect JACK’s begrudging adoption of an increasingly aggressive promotional value strategy to drive an improved absolute and relative same store sales performance in coming quarters,” Farmer said.

Shares of Jack in the Box were little changed Thursday, at $80.37.

Software maker Adobe is another stock analysts called out with bullish comments.

“We continue to believe Adobe remains one of the best positioned growth stories in software and the risk/reward remains attractive at current levels,” said Evercore ISI analyst Kirk Materne. His firm attended Adobe’s Digital Marketing Summit earlier this week and came away impressed by the company’s message.

Last week Adobe also reported strong fiscal first-quarter earnings but issued a weak second-quarter outlook. The stock is down 0.35 percent, to $261.88.

In a recent note, analysts at J.P. Morgan upgraded FireEye to overweight from neutral. J.P. Morgan analyst Sterling Auty said that while shares of the cybersecurity firm have lagged others in its coverage by 23 percent, “increased billings will make it an, “attractive risk/reward profile.”

The stock is down 0.06 percent in early trading, to $16.48.

Here’s what else analysts think has an attractive risk/reward: