It’s turning out to be a typical volatile January, with last week’s harsh selling among leading stocks leading to this week’s strong snapback that’s seen many leaders (including a few names we own) roar back to new high ground. That’s not to say the wobbles are over--in fact, we’d half-expect some more wiggles given earnings season is just getting started. But overall, things are volatile, but still bullish, so while we’re not flooring the accelerator, we are staying positive.


Last week, we sold half of one stock and placed another on Hold, but tonight, we’re going to start a new half-sized position in an old (from last year) favorite that we think got derailed mostly by the market environment last summer and fall--and now looks poised to do well if the market holds together.

Welcome to our TOP PICKS issue! For this issue, I asked the Cabot analysts to give me a couple of their top picks for 2024. I hope you will be pleased with the diversity—market-cap and sector-wise—that the analysts have offered.

But first, let’s talk about the market.

Things look good for 2024. Inflation is down, interest rates have likely peaked, and there is no sign of recession. But you never know. It’s a tough game to predict the future of the market. However, certain trends are likely to persist.

It’s a good bet that interest rates have peaked. Sure, they could edge higher from here. But they are unlikely to soar to new highs past 5% for the 10-year Treasury. The situation would have to completely reverse for that to happen. Meanwhile, stocks that have been dragged lower by rising interest rates have come alive again.

These stocks, which have strong track records of market outperformance, are at historically cheap valuations, have established upward momentum, and are positioned ahead of a likely slowing economy.

Also, artificial intelligence is here to stay. Businesses must spend on it not only for competitive advantage, but as a matter of survival. The new technology will continue to be a strong growth catalyst for technology stocks. And the trend will continue regardless of what the Fed does, or the state of the economy, or who is elected president.

In this issue, I highlight a fantastic dividend stock whose long record of strong performance has been interrupted these last two years. It’s also a company that focuses on technology and will surely benefit from the proliferation of AI in the years ahead. The timing for this stock should be outstanding.

2024 got off to a somewhat rocky start as the S&P 500 fell 1.8%, the Dow lost 0.6% and the Nasdaq lost 3.5% last week. And while the indexes fell there is rarely much to learn from the first week of the year as it is routinely “wonky,” with traders rotating from one sector to the next, and tax-related trading moving money out of recent winners.

Heads up: Because of MLK Day, next week’s issue will be published next Tuesday (January 16) after the close.

As for the market, we don’t want to repeat ourselves, but early January is known for sharp moves, and that might be playing out now. We’re not ignoring the short-term gyrations, especially if a stock really cracks key support, and, frankly, we’d expect some more tossing and turning, but we advise focusing more on the intermediate term—and on that front, the vast majority of evidence remains in the bull camp. We’re going to nudge our Market Monitor down to a level 7 to respect the wobbles we’ve seen, but overall we’re leaning bullish until the evidence changes.

This week’s list is an interesting one, with a batch of proven performers along with some off-the-bottom and more speculative situations. Our Top Pick is a name that was left for dead during the bear phase but has the makings of a powerful turnaround as revenue growth accelerates from modest levels and some newer offerings take root.

Stocks had a sluggish first week of 2024, but it’s not cause for concern yet. In fact, all of the Cabot Stock of the Week holdings are acting well enough that we haven’t had to subtract from the portfolio in weeks, allowing it to swell to 26 stocks with today’s new addition. It’s an undervalued dividend stock that is showing signs of life with interest rate cuts now firmly on the horizon – which should directly benefit its business. Tom Hutchinson just recommended the stock to his Cabot Dividend Investor audience.

Details inside.

We have six positions that are due to expire within the next two to three weeks. As it stands, at least so far, all of our positions are in great shape. Going forward, my intent this week is to add a few more income-generating positions to the mix. I’m looking at a higher volatility play as well as a few more lower beta stocks and ETFs with lower implied volatility as well. Remember, we not only want to diversify our approach using uncorrelated assets, we also want to vary our levels of volatility throughout the portfolio.

Okay, everyone, the wait is over: Earnings season is back. While the next few weeks will start rather slowly for earnings announcements, we should still see two to three trades before earnings season begins to truly pick up.

This week we have the big banks kicking things off, per usual. My hope is that we can get one, if not two trades off this week. As always, I’ll be focusing on stocks in the weekly watch list below, with Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase at the forefront.

Our SPY bear call spread is due to expire in 10 days. The probabilities on the trade stand at roughly 74% with two weeks left until expiration. A push lower early this week and we should be able to lock in a nice return on the trade.

I also plan on adding an iron condor to the mix this week and potentially a bull put spread in one of the stocks we follow on our watch list. Some stocks, unlike most indexes, have seen a return of volatility, as reflected by their higher IV ranks, so there is a good chance we will pounce on one of those opportunities this week.

2024 got off to a somewhat rocky start as the S&P 500 fell 1.8%, the Dow lost 0.6% and the Nasdaq lost 3.5%. And while the indexes fell there is rarely much to learn from the first week of the year as this week is often “wonky” as traders rotate from one sector to the next, and tax-related trading can move money out of recent winners.

2024 got off to a somewhat rocky start as the S&P 500 fell 1.8%, the Dow lost 0.6% and the Nasdaq lost 3.5%. And while the indexes fell there is rarely much to learn from the first week of the year as this week is often “wonky” as traders rotate from one sector to the next, and tax-related trading can move money out of recent winners.

Although markets have stumbled a bit out of the gate, investors looking to see the S&P 500 build on the 11% advance in the final quarter of 2023 may not have long to wait. U.S. companies are due to start reporting results next week, with the big banks leading the way.

An election year like 2024 with a sitting president running is historically a bullish scenario for U.S. stocks. Since 1949, the S&P 500 is averaging a gain of nearly 13% in those election years, per the Stock Trader’s Almanac.

So let’s kick off the year by adding another aggressive growth stock.

Last night at Hollywood’s Academy Awards, the movie “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won the award for best picture, long considered the top prize of the event. It also won six other coveted Oscars. The movie, ostensibly, is a science fiction film about alternative realities and an everyday laundromat owner.


For investors, the movie is immediately elevated to mandatory viewing – the title applies directly to what is going on in “this here” in “this now” in today’s capital markets.

We were rolling along in a choppy market to nowhere as the sticky inflation/hawkish Fed conundrum promised to play out for longer than hoped at the beginning of the year. But over the past several days a Black Swan event popped up, the failure of Silicon Valley Bank.

This week, we comment on earnings from ESAB (ESAB), Duluth Holdings (DLTH) and preliminary results from Volkswagen AG (VWAGY). Next week, Volkswagen reports its full results – we’ll include more comments as needed. That should wrap up this earnings season. Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) is an off-cycle company and reports on March 28.

The big events so far this week have been Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee (Tuesday) and the House Financial Services panel (Wednesday). He sounded more hawkish than he did during his February 1 press conference.

Here are the latest developments in the cannabis sector over the past two weeks.

The bottom line: States continue to march forward with legalization, but the negative trends of price compression and higher financing costs weigh on weaker players. That will create acquisition opportunities for the stronger companies in the space.

The market had a great start to the year and then slumped in February. March started off with the best week in a month for the S&P 500. What’s next?

There will be a lot of information coming out this month that could determine whether the market rallies or slumps from here. This week, the Fed speaks and the February jobs report comes out. These events could give investors a better idea of how aggressive the Fed will remain.

This week, we comment on earnings from Bayer AG (BAYRY), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/B), Dril-Quip (DRQ), Holcim (HCMLY), Kohl’s Corporation (KSS), Macy’s (M), Six Flags Entertainment (SIX), Viatris (VTRS), Volkswagen AG (VWAGY) and ZimVie Holdings (ZIMV).


Next week, we provide an update on earnings from ESAB (ESAB) and Duluth Holdings (DLTH), which should wrap up this earnings season.

WHAT TO DO NOW: The market remains in a pullback, with interest rate fears causing the indexes to slowly deflate. To this point, most indicators are still positive, though they’re leaning on the fence—yet there are many stocks and sectors that look ready to get going if the bulls can show up. All in all, we think how the Model Portfolio is situated (38% cash) makes sense here, though given the slippage, we will place ProShares S&P Fund (SSO) and Wingstop (WING) on Hold tonight. Details below.

Yesterday was Tesla’s annual investor day and it seems it came up a bit short regarding specifics.

Elon Musk started with a big number even by Washington standards, suggesting that realizing the vision for an energy transition could require some $7 trillion of investments in electric-vehicle manufacturing.

January was up. February was down. What’s next?


The S&P 500 rallied 6.2% in the first month of the year but pulled back 2.3% in February (as of Monday’s close). The market is still in positive territory YTD. But that could change.

As expected, the second half of February was pretty weak from a stock market return perspective.But February is over and March and April tend to be seasonally strong, according to Ryan Detrick of Carson Investment Research.

A few weeks ago, we introduced the Gartner Hype Cycle, which traces the path that all tech companies follow in what essentially is an immutable law of tech investing. Currently, tech stocks have passed the Peak of Inflated Expectations and are sliding down to the Trough of Disillusionment. A few will ascend back to prosperity along the “Slope of Enlightenment” if they maintain both their relevance and their competitive edge. But most will lose one or both of these traits and thus continue downward in what could be labeled the “Decline into Oblivion.”

The chart below follows the same pattern as the Tech Hype Cycle chart while it more specifically traces the pattern of revenues and profits. The peak of the Hype Cycle corresponds, of course, to the peak of the Sales cycle in the Maturity Stage. Most tech companies follow the Decline Stage line into oblivion.

This morning Inspire (INSP) issued preliminary Q4 2022 results that came in ahead of expectations. Management said it sees Q4 revenue up 76% to around $137.7 million (consensus was at $117 million, or +49%).

GDX has rallied of late and, as a result, our January 20, 2023 26 puts are essentially worthless. That being said, I want to buy back our 26 puts, lock in a nice profit, and immediately sell more premium

Today I’m going to open a conservative bear call spread in SPY going out to the February expiration cycle (42 days until expiration).

Today I’m going to open a conservative bear call spread in SPY going out to the February expiration cycle (42 days until expiration).

On Tuesday I sent out our first Dogs of the Dow trade with some insight regarding the investment strategy, our approach to poor man’s covered calls and a detailed discussion on the trade mechanics.

As part of the Income Wheel approach, we allowed our Wells Fargo (WFC) puts to expire in the money at expiration last week. As a result, we were issued shares at our chosen put strike of 44. So far, we’ve managed to lock in $3.47 worth of premium or 8.3%.

On Tuesday I sent out our first Dogs of the Dow trade with a discussion regarding the investment strategy, our approach to poor man’s covered calls and a detailed discussion on the trade mechanics.

Yesterday I sent out our first Dogs of the Dow with some notes on the investment strategy, our approach to poor man’s covered calls and a detailed discussion on the trade mechanics.

Today I’m going to open a conservative iron condor in IWM going out to the February expiration cycle (44 days until expiration). We need to start ramping up our premium for February, so I plan on starting with an iron condor and hopefully adding a bear call and bull put spread to the mix over the coming days.

Enovix (ENVX) management hosted a two-hour-long presentation from their Fremont, CA factory yesterday afternoon that went deep into the company’s outlook for battery production, sales projections and customer interest. The team also talked about new senior management hires.

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.