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.

Ahead of the long holiday weekend the market had yet another good week. The S&P 500 gained 1.75%, the Dow rallied 1.5%, and the Nasdaq rose another 1.9%.

This week in an attempt to diversify the portfolio we are adding an energy play.

Following a tough 9% dip in the Nasdaq and 6% haircut in the S&P 500, the market rebounded about as well as the bulls could have hoped--though, with that said, we don’t advise cannon-balling back into the pool per se, as the intermediate-term trend is mostly neutral here, interest rates are still a bugaboo and a lot of stocks still have work to do to repair the damage seen in late July and early August. Simply put, we see the past two weeks as a great first few steps for the market trying to emerge from its correction—but now we need to see continued follow through. We’ll bump our Market Monitor back to a level 6.

After a couple of so-so lists, this week’s crop of stocks is broad and includes many that have shown outsized buying volume of late. There are many enticing choices, but our Top Pick is threatening to break free from its recent launching pad and a giant post-IPO base after another great quarterly report.

Thank you for subscribing to the Cabot Value Investor. We hope you enjoy reading the September 2023 issue.

We do a deep-dive into what ails Citigroup (C) shares and remain steadfast in our conviction.

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.

I’m best reachable at Bruce@CabotWealth.com. I’ll do my best to respond as quickly as possible.

It’s September, which normally spells doom for investors. Even if that’s the case again this month, the “doom” is likely to be short-lived, as new bull markets like the one we saw in the first half of 2023 almost never up and fizzle. Short-term wobbles aside, share prices are likely to be higher by year’s end – perhaps much higher. With that in mind, today we take another dip in the growth pool by adding a favorite of Cabot Growth Investor Chief Analyst Mike Cintolo – a high-tech stock that’s already up more than 50% year to date and yet trades well off its late-2021 peak.

All of our positions look to be in great shape at the moment. Yes, there is a good chance we will be issued shares of WFC at the September expiration in 11 days, but that’s just part of the income wheel strategy. Sell puts until you are assigned shares. Sell calls against those newly issued shares until they are called away. Repeat.

We officially enter the quiet period for earnings this week. That being said, several companies with decent options liquidity are due to report this week in Kroger (KO) and DocuSign (DOCU). And next week several more are due report, with the highlight being Oracle (ORCL). All of this is basically a reminder that just even though another earnings season has passed us by there are still opportunities, while limited, to be had before the next earnings season begins.

Last week the market extended the recent rally. The move higher pushed the major indexes into a short-term overbought state while the VIX has, not surprisingly, moved into a short-term oversold state. Typically, when we see this type of short-term extreme hit the market a reprieve is right around the corner.

I had intended on adding a new position to the mix last week, but after coming down with my first case of Covid, I was down and out for a few days with little energy for adding new positions. However, now that I’m back in action I fully plan on adding several new positions to the portfolio this week, most likely over the next two days. Stay tuned for the alert.

The market is on course to have a nice week as the S&P 500 is higher by 3%, the Dow is up 1.2% and the Nasdaq tacked on 3% of gains. The VIX is trading at 13, which is lower by 17% on the week, which given the market’s gains is not surprising ahead of a long weekend.

The market is on course to have a nice week as the S&P 500 is higher by 3%, the Dow is up 1.2% and the Nasdaq tacked on 3% of gains. The VIX is trading at 13, which is lower by 17% on the week, which given the market’s gains is not surprising ahead of a long weekend.

One down, one to go.

Cannabis stocks soared today (August 30) on news that Health and Human Services (HHS) recommends cannabis get downgraded to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act, from Schedule I.

I predicted this a few days ago on the Cabot website, and in my last Cabot Cannabis Investor update on August 9.

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

The attention of most investors, commentators and analysts has been on the winners, notably the Magnificent Seven, driving this year’s stock market rally. As contrarians, we are fine with letting a few overpriced trendy stocks capture the spotlight. One place that draws our attention is the other end of the spectrum – those with the worst performance. While most of these stocks fully deserve the market’s dour judgment, some have favorable changes underway. We look into four large and mid-cap stocks that fit this description and one that does not. We also discuss a tactic to help improve one’s success in investing in out-of-favor stocks.

Our feature recommendation this month is Advance Auto Parts (AAP), one of the four major auto parts retailers. The shares have fallen sharply out of favor, but a comprehensive and much-needed overhaul is now starting.

We also include our recent Sell recommendations: Toshiba (TOSYY), Holcim AG (HCMLY), First Horizon (FHN) and ESAB Corporation (ESAB), and our suspension of our rating of shares of Kopin Corporation (KOPN).

This rise of the U.S. dollar against the yen, euro and pound as well as most other currencies in the world is a mixed blessing for investors. You can take your capital gains and head to Europe or Japan for a trip and imported goods will be cheaper. On the other hand, American companies and stocks will be hurt by their exports being more expensive to overseas buyers and their overseas earnings will be worth less in U.S. dollars when brought back to America.

After bumping up against its 200-day moving average line the S&P 500 has pulled back this week. The S&P 600 Small Cap Index has followed suit.

The torrid 17% rally from the June low is sputtering. That makes this market dangerous.
After bleeding all year because of persistent high inflation and a hawkish Fed, the market rallied on newfound optimism. The market anticipates six to nine months down the road and investors envisioned a Fed that is all done hiking rates by then amid falling inflation. But that’s optimistic. And the optimism has been waning.

Stocks are down this week after hitting resistance at their major moving averages and trendlines. So far the recent move back seems very normal after enjoying a good rally. Where it goes from here will determine if the recent summer rally has run its course or if we’ll see the re-establishment of a bullish move higher.

After quite a strong rip higher the first half of August, U.S. markets have pulled back sharply.
The S&P 500 touched its 200-day moving average last week and then immediately started to retreat.



Retail investor sentiment has started to creep up but it still feels to me that sentiment among professional investors remains quite low.

In late 1991, two storm systems and Hurricane Grace combined to produce some of the most violent open seas conditions on record. One monitoring buoy in offshore Nova Scotia reported a 100.7-foot wave (picture a 10-story building), a record for the region. In 1997, Sebastian Junger wrote the book The Perfect Storm and in 2000 it was made into a movie starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg.

The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) has reached a milestone of two million “.ETH” names created, just three months after it took them five years to generate one million addresses!

ENS operates like GoDaddy. These .ETH domains allow users to attach their digital wallet to the address, replacing the need for difficult-to-remember alphanumeric “0x” codes akin to IP addresses.



Web users can simply type in a text web address thanks to DNS.

This note includes our review of earnings from Brookfield Reinsurance (BAMR).

There were no ratings changes or price target changes this week.



This will be a brief note this week. It’s been a busy earnings season and we’re on the road this weekend in upstate New York. My oldest son will be a senior in high school starting in a few weeks and is knee-deep in the college application process. Visiting a dozen or so schools is, of course, part of this process.

It was a relatively quiet day on Wall Street, with the major indexes staying mostly range bound. At day’s end, the Dow up 19 points and the Nasdaq up 27 points

We had a one year old in 2013 and took a trip to Nevis, an island in the West Indies where my grandfather had retired in the 1980s.

The market’s decline in April was ugly but under control, but the end of last week and today have seen bigger air pockets emerge—not only have the major indexes fallen sharply, but other strong areas (like commodities) and safe havens (consumer staples) have come under pressure.

The bearish close of last week triggered some of our sell-stops and we should sell the following positions today.

The market got off to a decent start to the week, but things have deteriorated for many names over the last two days. There are a few stocks that I had anticipated selling relatively soon, hopefully into some strength.

While things can turn up quickly, especially during earnings season, the market’s downturn over the last two days suggests we should drop a couple of names today.

The bleeding out among growth stocks is continuing today thanks in part to Netflix’s (NFLX) implosion, with the Nasdaq and most growth funds under pressure.

Silvergate Capital (SI) reported Q1 2022 results yesterday morning and held a conference call later in the day. Digesting the results took some time but at a high level the trends are very solid, despite a somewhat messy quarter for crypto markets. Here are the main bullet points.

Given that today’s date is 4/20, I feel compelled to acknowledge that that’s the code for “time to smoke pot.” But I don’t have any jokes. This is serious business. And it’s doubly serious because we’ve been dealing with a weak sector for over a year!

The only bright spot in that trend is that valuations have become more attractive; if this goes on long enough, I expect Cabot’s value analyst Bruce Kaser will recommend one of these stocks!

We are adding the Proshares Strategy Bitcoin ETF, ticker symbol: BITO to our stock portfolio today. We are purchasing a quarter of our expected total position of 10%. There are several reasons why we may increase the weight to overweight and bring our total holdings over 10% in time. We highlight these below.

Terra (LUNA) is demonstrating very strong intraday price action – moving from $82 to $87. It is now up over 8% on a day when other names are flat or negative. LUNA is outperforming broader indices.

Since first recommending LUNA several weeks ago, price has been volatile. Today, we reiterate our conviction in holding LUNA over a multi-year period.

Today is the expiration of April options. Because I am on vacation this week I won’t dive deep into the profits, and one potential loss, for these positions until next week. However, most importantly, for today the “headline” is that you don’t need to act on any of our April positions.

Remain cautious. The market’s latest selloff has continued this week, with even this morning’s good-looking gap higher disintegrating by day’s end.

The market (and especially growth stocks) took a good-sized hit today—our Cabot Tides remain positive, but as we wrote in last week’s update, we’re still seeing lots of selling on strength, leading to many air pockets among individual stocks.

Cactus (WHD) moves to sell today. After a quick trip to north of 60, shares of WHD have been somewhat volatile and downside risks seems to be creeping in as investors weigh the relatively high valuation and potential for slower ramp up of onshore U.S. production even in the face of soaring oil prices.

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.