The market has been stagnant for the last month, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It could be a nice, long deep breath – in what is historically the market’s worst-performing month – before the next big push in this still-new bull market. But just in case it goes the other direction, today we add a low-risk utility stock that’s having a down year but tends to beat the indexes over time. It’s a longtime favorite of Cabot Dividend Investor Chief Analyst Tom Hutchinson.

Details inside.

We locked in another profitable trade last week, our October 20, 2023, SPY iron condor for a 10.4% gain. We were in the trade for 27 days. As it stands, our overall return is 156.4%, with an average hold time of 21 days. My hope is to extend those gains this week as I intend on locking in, if all goes well, a similar return in our IWM iron condor. Moreover, I intend on adding at least one to two additional trades this week.

We locked in some nice gains prior to expiration last week which brought our total return to 102.2%.

We also allowed our WFC short puts to carry through expiration and since the underlying price of WFC was below our short put strike we were assigned shares of WFC. As a result, we plan on selling calls against our newly acquired shares as we enter the covered call portion of the income wheel strategy in WFC.

The earnings doldrums are upon us, but we still have one potential opportunity this week, most notably a chance for a trade in FedEx (FDX). The company is due to announce after the closing bell Wednesday, so if I do send a trade alert, expect to see the alert around 2 p.m. ET that day.

It was a fairly quiet week in terms of the leading indexes’ performance as the S&P 500 fell marginally, the Dow mostly finished the week unchanged, and the Nasdaq fell by 0.4%.

It was a fairly quiet week in terms of the leading indexes’ performance as the S&P 500 fell marginally, the Dow mostly finished the week unchanged, and the Nasdaq fell by 0.4%.

We’re still playing the seesaw game in the markets—up, down, up, down, etc. I don’t see any need for excess worry; just a little caution that we buy the right stocks. I’m still very long-term bullish, and why not?

The economy continues to strengthen; 79% of the companies in the S&P 500 Index reported positive earnings surprises for the second quarter, and the third quarter looks even better; home building continues to be strong, although low inventory levels continue to pressure resales. Home prices appear to be stabilizing, and employment remains strong.

The soothsayers seem to think that the Fed will keep rates steady at its next meeting, and the probability of a recession has fallen to 16%. What’s not to like?

This year’s strong market has surprised most pundits. Hopefully, the good times last. Anything is possible.

I don’t want to get into the business of trying to predict what the market will do over the rest of the year. Even if you get things right, some stupid headline can come out of nowhere and change all the math. There’s a much better way than market timing.

Buying good stocks cheap is perhaps the best way to assure good returns over time. Different market sectors go in and out of favor all the time. Technology stocks were out of favor at the beginning of this year. No one wanted energy stocks at the beginning of 2021.

You may not think there are a lot of bargains anymore. Sure, it’s a bull market for the indexes. But it is still the darkest days of the bear market in certain places. Defensive stocks in utilities and other sectors are wallowing near the lows of last October while the indexes are whooping it up.

In this issue, I highlight three defensive portfolio positions. These stocks are all selling near 52-week lows and, in some cases, multi-year lows. But operational results at these companies have been as strong as ever. And all these currently out-of-favor stocks have long histories of superstar performance that blows away the returns of the overall market.

Forget the Fed, and inflation, or the velocity of the landing. Buying some of the very best dividend stocks on the market near the lowest valuation at which they ever sell should be a money-making strategy regardless of what happens with all that other stuff.

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.

Some of the positives that we saw in the latter half of August are still hanging around, not the least of which is a good amount of resilience from growth stocks that popped higher on earnings or otherwise saw good-volume buying. That said, the market as a whole doesn’t look ready, with last week bringing another round of selling in the broad market and the major indexes—the intermediate-term trend never could turn up, and few stocks are really moving up at this point. Long story short, there are some encouraging pieces of evidence, but more patience is likely needed. We’ll leave our Market Monitor at a level 6.

This week’s list is pretty well-rounded, with stocks from a variety of groups and of different sizes and profiles. Our Top Pick is a clear winner in the drug space with two big sellers; we’re OK grabbing a few shares here or (preferably) on dips.

Stocks took a predictable early-September hit last week, but the damage was minimal, and it appears the indexes want to go up – pending the results of this Wednesday’s inflation data, of course. Chinese stocks, meanwhile, haven’t gone anywhere but down for a while, but today we take a contrarian view by adding a big-brand Chinese company that Carl Delfeld just added to his Cabot Explorer portfolio. Sure, China’s economy has underwhelmed, but that’s not likely to be the case for long. And today’s addition is poised to lead China’s recovery.



Details inside.

The earnings doldrums are upon us, but we still have a few potential opportunities this week, most notably a chance for a trade in Oracle (ORCL). The company is due to announce after the closing bell today, so if a trade alert is sent, expect to see the alert around 2 p.m. ET.

The subject heading of my last Weekly Update was “The Weirdest Recession Ever (Maybe)”. We’re starting to see why. Because it may not be a recession at all.

Also this week, President Biden signed the $280 billion CHIPs and Science Act. American companies such as Intel and Micron Technology have announced substantial investments in chip manufacturing in an effort to lobby for these subsidies but now announce that they are pulling back as demand for chips used in electronics such as laptops and cell phones is weakening.

We have three ‘buys’ and a ‘drop’ from our Watch list this week.

Greentech is looking its most bullish in nine months, as the market are heartened by the Inflation Reduction Act and its $390 million support for U.S. clean energy efforts. The act still has to go be passed by the House of Representatives, but that is probably a rubber stamp after overcoming the high hurdle of the split Senate.

The market is having a big day today. July CPI came out and showed moderation in inflation at 8.5% versus 9.1% in the prior month. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was 5.9%, the same as last month.

The lower CPI number was widely expected as gasoline and other commodity prices have come down significantly amid the recession fears. But it was still lower than the expected 8.7%. Core inflation didn’t go down, but it didn’t rise either, suggesting a possible leveling off.

Investors seem to have abandoned commodity gold and the shares of gold miners like Barrick Gold. The commodity gold price has slipped 11% from its recent peak of $2,043/ounce while Barrick’s shares have tumbled 37% since reaching nearly $26/share earlier this year.

Cryptocurrency markets have had a very good month led by Ethereum-based projects. Our crypto portfolio of Ethereum (ETH), Polygon (MATIC), and Ethereum Name Service (ENS) are all performing very well, and this trend is expected to continue.

This note includes our review of earnings from Adient (ADNT), Conduent (CNDT), Gannett (GCI), Goodyear Tire & Rubber (GT), Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (IRWD), Kaman Corporation (KAMN), Molson Coors (TAP), Organon & Co. (OGN), Vodafone (VOD), Western Digital (WDC) and Western Union (WU). Next week the deluge tapers with six companies reporting.

There were no ratings or price target changes this week.

The major indexes continue to act well in the wake of our Cabot Tides buy signal, which is clearly a good thing. That said, the vast majority of action remains in stocks that are buried on their charts, while those that acted resilient in recent months are mostly just sitting around.

This market is having quite a rally. The S&P 500 just had one of the best months ever in July, up 9.1% for the month, and is currently up more than 12% from the June low. Will the good times last?

Investors are sniffing an end game to the misery of ever-rising inflation and an ultra-hawkish Fed that has been dogging the market all year. The market tends to anticipate six months or so into the future. By then, it sees inflation under control and a Fed that is done hiking rates and maybe even talking about easing again.

This was a quiet week, and so I’m going to use my introduction to share an update on Cogstate (COGZF), which reported preliminary fiscal 2022 results.

What a July! The S&P 500 moved 9.1% higher for the month, making it the best month since the first pandemic recovery month in 2020. It also closed up 12.6% from the low in June.
Is this a bear market rally or the beginning of something beautiful?

The top five holdings in this ETF are: Invesco Shrt-Trm Inv Gov&Agcy Instl (AGPXX, 24.11% of net assets); Coffee C Future Sept 21 (KCU21, 7.43%); Corn Sept21 (CU1, 6.82%); Sugar No. 11 Futures Sept21 (SBV1, 6.71%); and Soybean Nov21 (SX1, 6.66%).

Today we are raising our price target on Arcos Dorados (ARCO) from 7.50 to 8.50. The company is recovering from the pandemic and looks well-positioned to expand its franchise and profits while continuing to improve its balance sheet. The shares remain undervalued.

Sprout Social (SPT) reported a terrific Q4 yesterday and offered above-consensus guidance for 2022. Despite the good results and outlook, we’re going to sell another one-quarter position to take our stake down to one half today. The bottom line is it continues to be a challenging environment for pure growth stocks, and we need to continue to adapt to the times.

This asset management company earned $0.58 per share last quarter, handily beating analysts’ estimates of $0.49. The shares have a current annual dividend yield of 7.87%, paid quarterly.

Today, the Undiscovered Portfolio sold three ETFs for the following reasons.

Cloudflare (NET) reported Q4 results yesterday that surpassed expectations. Revenue was up 54% to $193.6 million while adjusted EPS came in at $0.01. As compared to some other software stocks that have beat expectations, Cloudflare reinvested the surplus cash in growth initiatives, so it didn’t flow to the bottom line.

Our first idea, a cloud security company, is set to report earnings today. Analysts are expecting EPS of $0.11 on revenues of $241.56 million. Our second recommendation is a short-sale of a company whose shares are on a downward slide.

Cloudflare (NET) reported Q4 results yesterday that surpassed expectations. Revenue was up 54% to $193.6 million while adjusted EPS came in at $0.01. As compared to some other software stocks that have beat expectations, Cloudflare reinvested the surplus cash in growth initiatives, so it didn’t flow to the bottom line.

Sprout Social (SPT) reported a terrific Q4 yesterday and offered above-consensus guidance for 2022. Despite the good results and outlook, we’re going to sell another one-quarter position to take our stake down to one half today. The bottom line is it continues to be a challenging environment for pure growth stocks, and we need to continue to adapt to the times.

This Indiana bank is rated ‘Strong Buy’ by Zacks, based on rising earnings estimates. It also pays a healthy annual dividend yield of 2.31%, paid quarterly.

This electrical equipment company beat analysts’ EPS estimates by $1.02 last quarter.

Today is the expiration of our three February covered calls. The big picture takeaway is that all three will expire for full profits, you don’t need to act on any of these trades, and come Monday we will no longer own a stock or option position in MRO, TECK and ABBV.

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.