For the second month in a row we’re going where the growth appears most resilient. Which means MedTech.

This month it’s another company focused on the spine. But a very specific area. The company specializes in implants for sacroiliac joint (SI) fusion. It already reported Q1 results (beat expectations) and the stock is acting well.

Enjoy!

Thank you for subscribing to the Cabot Turnaround Letter. We hope you enjoy reading the May 2023 issue.

Capital market conditions have tightened in the past year, making companies that hold excess cash more valuable and less reliant on fickle external financing. Our search for cash-rich companies that have real products and services with proven and enduring demand whose shares are out-of-favor turned up three promising stocks. Several currently recommended Cabot Turnaround Letter names would also make this list.

Our research process involves looking at a large number of possible turnaround ideas. As investing legend Peter Lynch once said, “The person that turns over the most rocks wins the game.” We uncovered six stocks that have both promising turnarounds ahead yet also have discounted share prices.

Led by mega-cap tech stocks, the indexes tacked on modest gains last week. The S&P 500 rose 1%, the Dow added 0.84%, and the Nasdaq gained 0.7%.

Thank you for subscribing to the Cabot Value Investor. The new name for the former Cabot Undervalued Stocks Advisor more clearly and broadly describes our mission to serve value-oriented investors. We hope you enjoy reading the May 2023 issue.

Fitting for a value investment newsletter, your chief analyst will be making the pilgrimage to the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting this coming weekend.

In this month’s letter, we include our recent new Buy recommendation: NOV, Inc. (NOV). This high quality mid-cap company ($7.3 billion market cap) appears to be in front of an upshift in demand for sophisticated drilling equipment even as its shares trade at a modest valuation.

We also cover earnings reports and provide other relevant updates on our recommended companies.

Please feel free to send me your questions and comments. This newsletter is written for you and the best way to get more out of the letter is to let me know what you are looking for.

For the big-cap indexes, last week was intriguing, with a sharp dip from resistance on Monday and Tuesday leading to an equally-sharp snapback—a possible shakeout of sorts. That said, the bullish action remains concentrated in a handful of names; the broad market is still meandering at best and there were more than a few air pockets last week among potential leaders. All in all, we’ll drop our Market Monitor to a level 4—that said, there are still tons of earnings reports on tap this week and next, so a bunch of gaps up (and broad market strength) could give us plenty to work with.

This week’s list has a bunch of recent earnings winners as well as a few that are set to report. Our Top Pick was an early leader off last year’s October lows and looks to be resuming its uptrend after a two-month rest.

The good times keep rolling in the Stock of the Week portfolio, as more than a handful of our stocks are either at 52-week highs or all-time highs thanks in part to big earnings boosts in recent weeks.

While there are myriad potential potholes out there – another big regional bank failed, another interest rate hike is likely coming this week, the debt ceiling and mild recession are looming, earnings overall have been mixed, and so on – the market has been remarkably resilient of late. So this week we take another big swing by sticking with what has been our bread-and-butter niche since taking over this advisory last summer: up-and-coming retail leaders. The latest addition is a favorite of Cabot Growth Investor Chief Analyst Mike Cintolo.

Details inside.

Our focus this week will be on CVS Health (CVS), Starbucks (SBUX), ConocoPhillips (COP) and Apple (AAPL).


Last Friday, during our live webinar, we took a detailed look at what type of trading opportunities the four companies above (and several others) were offering prior to their earnings releases this week. Fortunately, it looks like all four offer some decent trading opportunities, although Mr. Market will ultimately dictate whether or not the same opportunities are available at the time of the trade. My hope is that we are able to get two to three trades off this week, bringing our total for this earnings season to seven.

We have two positions on at the moment, both due to expire at the June 16 expiration date. Fortunately, both are hovering around the same price we sold them for, so all is well at the moment. And given we are leaning slightly bearish in both positions, a move lower should certainly help both positions and possibly lead to some early profit taking.


My hope this week is to add one more trade to the June 16 expiration cycle, preferably a bullish leaning trade to balance out the deltas in the portfolio. Otherwise, we will simply sit on our hands and allow time decay to work in our favor.

We are 18 days away from the May 19, 2023, expiration cycle coming to a close and the three remaining May positions all remain in good standing. Moreover, time decay continues to accelerate, which has already started to give us an opportunity to roll our positions in an attempt to collect more premium.

We locked in profits in both PFE and KO and immediately sold more premium last week and if all goes well this week, I intend to do the same with the remaining three May positions.

*Since we started the Income Trader service back in early June 2022, we’ve brought in a total of 69.14% in income. My hope is that we can step up our gains even further by adding as we progress through 2023.

Led by mega-cap tech stocks, the indexes tacked on modest gains last week. The S&P 500 rose 1%, the Dow added 0.84%, and the Nasdaq gained 0.7%.

Led by mega-cap tech stocks, the indexes tacked on modest gains last week. The S&P 500 rose 1%, the Dow added 0.84%, and the Nasdaq gained 0.7%.

After another month of dramatic declines in March, cannabis stocks showed a little more stability in April.

This is encouraging, even though it is never really possible to “call the bottom” in out-of-favor groups.

How out of favor is cannabis? I’ve invested through three bear markets, and I don’t think I have ever seen a group as unloved as cannabis is now. Remember, this is a good thing if you are a contrarian investor looking for bargains, as long as the group in question is not a value trap. (Like the declining newspaper industry years ago, a value trap that Warren Buffett got caught in.)

Earnings reports from two recommended companies were mildly encouraging. There was very little news on other recommended companies. We note our recent Sell recommendation that produced a 41% return since our September 2021 Buy recommendation. We also comment on an emerging macro concept useful for value investors.

We comment on earnings from our recommended companies, a new buyback at a recommended company, trapdoor tech stocks, the possibility of a massive economy-wide inventory downcycle, and thoughts on energy stocks.

Stocks are deep in the red today following some high-profile earnings duds—as of 1 pm ET, the Dow is down 334 points, and the Nasdaq is off 387 points.

January was the worst month for the market since March of 2020. The S&P 500 was down 5.38% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq fell 10% for the month. But stocks are recovering so far in the first week of February as earnings come to the rescue.

The first month of 2022 is in the books. And it wasn’t good. It was the worst month since March of 2020.

After a sharp pullback in January, the market has started to snap back this week. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be surprised in the market tests new lows in February. Usually when the market is down in January, February weakness follows.

It was fun while it lasted, but it didn’t last long… That statement certainly describes gold’s recent flight-to-safety rally (and subsequent sell-off). But it could also be considered a worthy refrain for gold’s three prior lift-off attempts since last August, each of which proved to be a false breakout.

We update earnings from six recommended companies, summarize our ideas from the February Cabot Turnaround Letter, and provide comments on news from other recommended stocks. Also, check out this month’s Catalyst Report which lists important and potentially value-creating changes at undervalued companies.

Anybody that’s done a drive with kids has faced this question more times than they’d like to recall. We’re facing the same question now with respect to the market’s retreat as we look for some stability.

Stocks hopefully have settled down after facing a rough market in recent weeks fed by expectations that the Fed soon will embark on raising interest rates. This has led to sharp pullbacks for growth stocks with high valuations and no earnings. Quality and value are beating risk right now.

After a wild couple of weeks where technology stocks corrected, down 10% or more from the high, and the S&P 500 fell 10% on an intraday basis, investors nervously await the Fed this afternoon. The chairman will show us the way. He knows everything.

By some measures, Greentech looks more bearish than it has since March last year, with our benchmark Wilderhill Clean Energy Index breaking below support around 70-68.

The trend is clearly up in this hospitality stock, with institutional investors like mutual funds, jumping back into the shares after the breakdown due to COVID.

In JOANN’s second quarter as a public company, management has dealt with the Delta variant complicating social sewing events and supply chain challenges driving up costs. The net effect in Q2 was that revenue of $496.9 million missed by almost $36 million and adjusted EPS of -$0.20 missed by $0.06.

The quarter was just what we wanted see. Revenue grew by 87.9% to $29.5 million, slightly ahead of consensus for $29.1 million (which was based on S-1 filling guidance). Operating margin was roughly a percentage point above expectations (-6.8%). Full-year 2021 guidance of $103.5 - $104.3 million is ahead of consensus of $100 million and implies growth of 51% to 52% versus the 46% rate embedded in prior consensus. Given the trends, wise management team and status as a new IPO we should view this guidance as conservative.

The top five holdings in this fund are: Roper Technologies Inc (ROP, 10.71% of assets); Pentair PLC (PNR, 7.90%); Xylem Inc (XYL, 6.80%); Tetra Tech Inc (TTEK, 5.63%); and Rexnord Corp (RXN, 5.45%).

In the past 30 days, 10 analysts have increased their EPS estimates for this BDC. The shares have a current dividend yield of 8.42%, paid quarterly.

Since hitting a low in August, silver is trying to establish an intermediate-term low and could be on the cusp of another meaningful rally—especially if the market fears that inflation is truly becoming an entrenched reality (as opposed to a temporary phenomenon).

In the past 30 days, four analysts have boosted their EPS estimates for our first pick, a consumer products company that has a current annual dividend yield of 2.08%, paid quarterly. Our second recommendation is some hefty profit-taking on a previous idea.

I was recently able to speak to Laurie Sims, President at Libsyn. We had a nice conversation, and I got some good insights into the business. See my notes at the end of this update.

This investment company is expected to grow earnings at a rate of 16.7% this year. The shares have a current dividend yield of 5.65%, paid monthly.

In a recent note, analysts at RBC noted that their buy rating for this energy company was based partly on its excellent earnings per share, which were “the best since the 1Q20 print, and more than double the 59 cents reported in the year-ago quarter”, as well as it’s “reliable dividend.” The shares have a current annual dividend yield of just 8.6%, paid quarterly.

Gold broke decisively above the widely watched $1,800 level on Friday on a weaker dollar and rising geopolitical worries involving the situation in Afghanistan. As of late Friday, gold was headed for its best weekly close in almost two months.

This payments company is expected to grow its EPS by 53.76% annually over the next five years.

A few Cabot Options Trader subscribers have asked me about ways to protect gains in their portfolios, so I thought I would write to everyone with a couple of strategies using options to hedge your portfolio.

A subscriber recently asked me if I keep a journal of my trades. Many traders keep journals so they can look back at their trades and evaluate what they did right and what they did wrong.

Want to know how the big institutional investors use options? Here is an example of how one trader spent $132 million on three technology stocks.

Options trading has its own vernacular. To know how to do it, you need to know what every options term means. Here are some of the basics.

Our Cabot Momentum Trader’s market timing system consists of two parts—one based on the action of three select, growth-oriented market indexes, and the other based on the action of the fast-moving stocks Cabot Momentum Trader features.