July concluded with an impressive rally, led by strong earnings reactions from mega-cap technology stocks (MSFT/AMZN/AAPL) which helped propel the S&P 500 to gain 4.25% on the week, the Dow to rise 3%, and the Nasdaq to soar higher by 4.7%.

What a week for the market! That’s not something we’ve said a whole lot this year. But we’ll take the good news and try and capitalize on the momentum by adding the first pure growth stock to the Stock of the Week portfolio in a while – one that Cabot Growth Investor analyst Mike Cintolo thinks could be a new leader in its fast-blossoming field.

Plus, with a lot of our stocks acting well, we’ve upgraded two of our existing recommendations to Buy. Details inside!

2022 has been pretty sour this year, but let’s give credit where it’s due—the market has been able to put one foot in front of the other for a few weeks now, and importantly, after showing enough strength to turn the intermediate-term trend up two weeks ago, the buyers have kept on buying, really the first time we’ve seen that all year. The vast majority of action has been from off-the-bottom names, so it’s not the time to go bananas on the buy side. But with the evidence continuing to improve, we’re OK extending your line as things start working.



This week’s list has a wide range of names in a variety of sectors. Our Top Pick has a reliable story and solid growth, and its sector is suddenly acting very spunky. Try to buy on dips after the recent move.

The recent rally in the market has helped all our positions. If this keeps up, we should reap quite a bit of premium for the August expiration cycle.

We added JPM to our shorter-term Income Trades Portfolio and plan to add several more as we progress through earnings season. My intent is to add at least two to three more to that portfolio by the end of next week as the opportunities are plentiful currently. As I’ve stated in the past, the goal is to ladder our shorter-term trades, so we have trades expiring on a weekly basis. Of course, we are in the beginning stages of the service, with a challenging market, so I will remain patient in my selection. If Mr. Market cooperates, stay tuned for several trade alerts as we move through next week.

As we enter the fourth week of earnings we’ve been averaging only one trade per week. No biggie. We should still see our average of 8-12 trades by the end of the season and with a few key opportunities next week I hope to make at least two, potentially three trades. Of course, Mr. Market will truly decide whether or not we are able to place more than one or two trades next week.

We locked in another gain this week, marking our fifth straight winner since starting the Quant Trader service. Our cumulative total is 56.26%, for an average winner of 11.25%. The gains have been on the smaller side, but given the volatility we’ve seen in this market, I’ve chosen to take winners off the table when we can lock in 50% to 75% of the original premium sold. In some cases, I might let a few winners run a little longer, but not in this market. There is no need to press. And when you think the market has lost 2.6% over the same time frame, well, I think we’ve done okay for ourselves.

The market’s slow, steady improvement continues, with our Cabot Tides turning positive last week and some more stocks starting to shape up. That said, we still think it’s best to go slow here, partially due to more time being needed for setups to emerge, and partly because so many names we’re watching actually report earnings in the next week or two; the reactions will go a long way toward telling us if this rally has legs. Right now, we’re cautiously optimistic--we have no more buys tonight but could in the days ahead if things go well.



In tonight’s issue, we write about our new additions, review some other top ideas (including one that’s shown repeated huge-volume buying over the past many months) and remind you that the market is very capable of getting going despite the bad economy.

This week’s GDP number should confirm that we are in a recession. That might be good news for the market.
The worst situation for stocks tends to be a “looming recession”. Stocks tend to fall most as a recession approaches and in the early phases of an actual recession. Stocks also tend to recover before the economy because the market anticipates six to nine months into future. In a typical recession, stocks fall before it hits and recover before it’s over.


If this week’s number confirms that we are in a recession that began at the beginning of the year, the market should be in a more desirable position than if a recession is anticipated later this year or early next year.<.p>


The recent rally in technology is encouraging. I mentioned in last month’s issue that technology stocks had fallen before the overall market and were likely to recover before most other sectors. Since then, portfolio position Qualcomm (QCOM) is up nearly 30%.


This month’s issue highlights another technology stock, Intel (INTC) . The stock is still very cheap with bright prospects in the future. If the market turns south again, the stock should hold up better than the technology sector and be a solid longer-term hold. But if this rally in technology proves to be lasting and QCOM gets called away, we will still have another tech stock that should move higher as well and provide a great call writing opportunity.

In recent months I’ve been telling you that cannabis stocks were incredibly cheap and overdue for a bounce and now it seems the world is starting to agree, as all our cannabis operators (not the REIT) have seen their stocks climb in the past month.

Of course, the broad market’s rebound has helped, but the broad market doesn’t have the compelling fundamentals of the cannabis industry’s top stocks.



Bottom line: the first six months of 2022 were rough. The past month brought us a small gain. And I expect far bigger gains over the remainder of the year.



Full details in the issue.



Yours for wealth and wisdom.

The precious metals remain near their yearly lows, but a window of opportunity still beckons. Specifically, recent commercial hedging activity points to a possible bottom ahead for the metals.

Elsewhere, titanium remains one of today’s strongest metals. Other industrial metals, meanwhile, are coming off major lows but have rebound potential.



In the trading portfolio, I’m adding a potential short-covering trade for a palladium ETF. Details inside.

This week we are going to make a play on Qualcomm (QCOM), which is due to report earnings on Wednesday. And while there is risk in executing a trade ahead of earnings, we are going to play it conservatively by selling an in-the-money call.

For the first time in months, stocks actually have a bit of momentum. Is it sustainable? Or another false start? Too early to tell. But it’s a good time to keep adding beaten-down names that are finally showing signs of life. This week’s new recommendation fits the bill, and has been a big winner for Carl Delfeld since he added it to his Cabot Explorer portfolio earlier this month.

Details inside.

Remain optimistic but pick your stocks carefully. The overall market is in good shape, and there’s definitely more good than bad among individual stocks, though it’s also tricky, with plenty of rotation and news-driven moves.

Stocks showing strength and breadth like we haven’t seen in a long time, particularly with the broad market at a record high. Despite flattish returns from the formerly high-flying mega-cap tech stocks, the broad stock market is no longer grinding higher, it is surging higher, lifting the S&P 500 index to a month-to-date gain of 8.8% through Monday.

Given the news that we are likely to have several effective vaccines approved over the next couple of months, value stocks, which tend to be more cyclical and thus will benefit more sharply from an improving economy, have outperformed growth stocks.

This week, ten companies reported earnings, with Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) reporting tomorrow (Saturday): Barrick Gold (GOLD), Conduent (CNDT), Gannett (GCI), GCP Applied Technologies (GCP), General Motors (GM), Jeld-Wen Holdings (JELD), LaFargeHolcim (HCMLY), Meredith Corporation (MDP), Mosaic (MOS), and ViacomCBS (VIAC).

After an insane couple of weeks this one has felt relatively calm. There is still plenty of market-moving news around the election, vaccines, the pandemic’s frightening trajectory, etc. but I think we’ve all become somewhat accustomed enough to alarming headlines – within a certain range – that it’s harder to get shaken now than in the past.

Markets steadied this week as the political situation became clearer and prospects for Covid-19 vaccines becoming available in the first half of 2021 seem more promising. The Explorer portfolio performed well this week, with a couple of ideas breaking out to new highs.

The economy is already rebounding, and at a stronger pace than was expected. But it still has one arm tied behind its back with the remaining restrictions and lockdowns. Plus, with the indexes not far from all time highs, the market had likely risen as much as it was going to before the next phase of the recovery came into view.

This year continues to amaze. The market had another big rally this week on news of very positive late-stage trial results for a coronavirus vaccine from pharmaceutical company Moderna (MRNA). The S&P 500 soared to a new all-time high, the first since early September.

This was a busy week, with many of our companies reporting earnings.

While pulling back a bit from the sharp jump on Monday, November 9th, the market rebounded on additional encouraging Covid vaccine results this week.

This week only four companies reported earnings. As your chief analyst is traveling this week, there is no podcast.

Stay cautious for now as we wait to see whether growth stocks can find their footing (which they’ve done for a couple days in a row now).

Tyler updates us on two more stocks that reported earnings recently.

Growth stocks have taken a beating so far this week as a sharp rotation is underway. Given that the Model Portfolio was 41% cash coming into this week, we’re not craving more cash, but we are making one small move tonight

We have four earnings reports from last night to get to today (ARNA, APPF, RPAY, SPT). Right now, I’m getting the first two out and will follow up with the other two shortly.

The market continues to react to the good news on the vaccine front, but growth stocks continue to suffer. Today we’re taking another incremental step to wind down some of our exposure.

This mega-tech company is preparing to spin-off a subdivision.

Bruce is selling three portfolio stocks.

We are getting closer to clearing two of the biggest hurdles of uncertainty out there. I am, of course, talking about the U.S. presidential election and the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine news.

The U.S. and the world has cleared two of the biggest hurdles of uncertainty out there. I am, of course, talking about the U.S. presidential election and the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine news.

We are moving Peabody Energy (BTU) and Weyerhaueser (WY) to Sell.

We are moving Barrick Gold (GOLD) to Sell.

This building products company posted earnings of $1.04 per share last quarter, compared to analysts’ estimates of $0.78.

Three of our portfolio stocks report earnings.

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 Top Ten 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 Top Ten features.