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tyler-laundon

Tyler Laundon

Chief Analyst, Cabot Small-Cap Confidential and Cabot Early Opportunities

Tyler Laundon is chief analyst of the limited-subscription advisory, Cabot Small-Cap Confidential and grand slam advisory Cabot Early Opportunities. He has spent his entire career managing, consulting and analyzing start-up and small-cap companies. His hands-on experience has taught Tyler that the development of a superior business model is the biggest factor in determining a company’s long-term success. Accordingly, his research focuses on assessing the viability of management’s growth strategies, trends in addressable markets and achievement of major developmental milestones.

Tyler’s small-cap portfolios favor a high allocation to stable, high growth companies, upon which he layers strategic purchases of higher risk, event-driven investments. He first began publishing his analysis of small-cap opportunities in 2009. Since 2012, he has led his subscribers into 10 doubles. Between 2012 and September, 2015 his small-cap recommendations generated cumulative returns of over 2,300%, including both winners and losers, and outperformed the Russell 2000 Index by an average of 28% per year.

Prior to joining Cabot, Tyler founded and operated a small business for 15 years. He then worked as a consultant for start-up technology companies, as well as Vermont’s largest health care institution. From 2009 to 2015, he was the chief analyst of growth stocks at Wyatt Investment Research, where his research spanned the full spectrum of the growth stock universe, from micro-cap start-ups to multi-national mega-caps.

Tyler holds a B.S. and MBA from The University of Vermont, where he graduated Valedictorian. He has been a long-time contributor to the Wall Street’s Best Investments, has been quoted by U.S. News & World Report, and has presented investing ideas and strategies for The Money Show and Bloomberg Markets LiveINSIGHTS.

From this author
The broad market was taken down a notch yesterday, supposedly because job openings increased in August. I’m not buying it.

We’ll get average hourly earnings for September on Friday, which will probably show wage inflation continues to ease and the labor market isn’t as tight as yesterday’s market reaction implies.
The broad market is getting whacked today after holding up relatively well in the face of rising bond yields. The reasons behind why bonds are selling off and yields are rising is beyond the scope of our discussion today. But suffice to say there are forces at work that are more complex and nuanced than a simple “Fed says higher for longer so yields are rising.” The recent spike in the 10-year yield may well have more to do with the federal deficit and supply/demand dynamics. So yeah, beyond the scope.
The market has been on edge since the Fed’s hawkish tone and updated Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) last week. But if we can get oil and interest rates to back off a little and some stock-specific catalysts during the upcoming Q3 earnings season maybe we can finally take our macroeconomist hats off and get back to doing what we’d rather do. Which is talk about some of the great small growth stories out there!
The Fed’s commitment to “higher for longer” interest rates has weighed on markets, but what will it mean for large and small-cap stocks?
The highlight of my week so far just might be waking up this morning and realizing I can count the remaining days in September just using my fingers. That’s not because the weather hasn’t mostly been beautiful in Rhode Island. It has. It’s because, as you know, the market has struggled this month.
As expected, the Federal Reserve elected to hold the Federal Funds Rate (FFR) steady today (at 5.25% to 5.5%) and also increased their projection for the FFR for 2024 from 4.6% (in June) to 5.1%. This is consistent with the “higher for longer” mantra.
In the September issue of Cabot Early Opportunities, we look into what this afternoon’s Federal Reserve meeting could mean for the market. Then we dig into five small-cap companies from the industrial, biotech, software and clean energy markets. There’s something for everybody.

Enjoy!
In this week’s video, Mike Cintolo talks about the market’s under-the-surface improvement that he’s seeing; no indicators have changed, which will need to happen for him to extend his line in a big way, but there’s no question most stuff has seen improvement and more stocks are beginning to act properly. Mike did a little buying this week and is hoping to add more should the market be able to build on the recent action.
There have been a number of conferences going on lately, so today’s update is partially focused on what our attending companies had to say.

There were no really big reveals, but also no change in tone from the management teams I listened to – and certainly nothing edging toward the more negative side of the scale.

Big picture, I’d say leadership teams continue to be somewhat conservative. Given that we only have a couple weeks left of Q3 they should have a pretty good handle on how the quarter should shake out (and the year for that matter).
Warren Buffett can’t buy small-cap stocks any more, but here’s why you can and should. Keep reading to learn more investing like Buffett.
Want to know how to find small-cap stocks? Here are my five rules for investing in these high-return, high-risk investments.
Braze (BRZE) delivered Q2 results after the close yesterday that beat expectations. Revenue grew 33.6% to $115.1 million, beating by $6.4 million while EPS of -$0.04 was up from -$0.16 in Q2 last year and beat by $0.10.

Intapp (INTA) delivered Q4 results after the close yesterday that beat expectations. Revenue grew 25.3% to $94.6 million, beating by $1.5 million while EPS of $0.04 was up from -$0.04 in Q4 last year and beat by $0.03.
This month we’re jumping into a highly specialized financial services company that helps immigrants send money to friends and families overseas.

You can think of it as the modern version of Western Union (WU). But there’s more to the story than that. Starting with a vision that’s a lot more about helping customers than overcharging them.

The hook is that revenue growth is off the charts. And it’s profitable!

All the details are inside this month’s Issue.
Small caps had a decent week with the S&P Small Cap 600 ETF (IJR) rising just over 2% since our last update. This is a welcome relief on a number of levels, including from a technical perspective.

In late July the ETF looked like it was going to challenge the year’s high (from February) near 108. Momentum stalled at 105 as the calendar turned to August. By the 18th (two weeks ago) the IJR was just below 100, sitting on its 200-day moving average line.
Microsoft is a well-known company, but given recent developments in their AI offerings, MSFT stock looks like a diamond hiding in plain sight.
Including “AI” in your earnings calls was a cheat code for companies in the first half of the year, but investors ultimately need to see those efforts monetized, and it’s already starting.
After three rough weeks in August, small caps have finally begun to stabilize around their 200-day moving average line.

I’d like to say blame for the weak performance rests fully on the shoulders of small-cap financials due to rising yields, commercial real estate mortgage default risk, etc.

But the truth is most sectors have been weak. Small-cap health care looks downright awful, with the Invesco S&P Small Cap Healthcare ETF (PSCH) hitting a new low for the year late last week.
After a strong summer, stocks struggled in August. Will they turn things around with an end-of-year rally? If so, this is what we need.
Academy Sports (ASO) Dips on Dick’s Sporting Goods’ (DKS) Horrible Quarter
In this week’s video, Mike Cintolo talks about the market’s under-the-surface improvement that he’s seeing; no indicators have changed, which will need to happen for him to extend his line in a big way, but there’s no question most stuff has seen improvement and more stocks are beginning to act properly. Mike did a little buying this week and is hoping to add more should the market be able to build on the recent action.
Welcome to this week’s Cabot Macro Investor update.

I’m joking. We’re still all about small-cap stocks. But now that earnings season is over it’s all about the macro again. So we’ve got to address it.

In the second half of July, I felt like we were due for a pullback.
In the August Issue of Cabot Early Opportunities, we talk about what happened to the summer stock rally and dig into five companies selling everything from coffee to sporting goods to mobile advertising tools.

Enjoy!
IonQ (IONQ) and Rivian (RIVN) Report Q2 Results
The last two weeks have been a lot less fun than June and most of July. But big picture, a pullback is not remotely surprising.

Through yesterday’s close, both the large and small-cap indices were down about 2.6% from their recent highs. The Nasdaq was down almost 5%.

What is a little surprising is the rapid change of tone out there. This can be squarely blamed on Fitch’s downgrade of U.S. debt and Moody’s bearish notes on those 10 banks they think don’t look so hot.
It’s nice to see Duolingo (DUOL) responding well to another very solid earnings release. The company reported that Q2 revenue grew 43.5% to $126.8 million (beating by $3.1 million) while adjusted EPS of $0.08 improved from -$0.38 in the year-ago quarter and beat by $0.27.
Datadog (DDOG) Drops After Q2 Results
SI-Bone (SIBN) reported yesterday afternoon that revenue rose by 30% to $33.3 million (beating by almost $2 million) and EPS came in at -$0.30, a penny better than expected. Management raised full-year guidance by $3.5 million to $133 million (at the midpoint), about $1 million more than the Q2 beat.
Earnings Roundup: LUNG, RACE, ELF, SHOP, HUBS, FIX
Sell Terex (TEX)

We jumped into TEX four months ago on March 3, literally just a few days before the stock took a dive that ended up sending it 30% lower over the next few weeks. We held on and those of you that added shares along the way should have a much better return than the roughly 7% gain showing in our official portfolio. With so many growthier stocks acting well and TEX up over 50% from its April lows, I’m going to take the modest gain and boot it from our portfolio today. To be clear, I don’t hate TEX and think the bullish thesis I presented back in March still holds true. That said, the reality is there are just too many other stocks with better upside potential right now and I want to maintain concentration in those while taking down our market exposure ever so slightly through next week’s Fed meeting (our next Issue is due out in two weeks). SELL