If you had written a script of what you wanted to see from the market a few weeks back, most of that has come true; simply put, the evidence continues to improve. Now, of course, things aren’t perfect—we’re seeing a bit of rotation out there that could continue to play out, and there are some potential leaders that are getting wobbly; throw in the fact people are feeling more comfortable and we’re not advising anyone to go hog wild. But with the evidence continuing to impress, we’ll bump our Market Monitor up another notch to a level 7.

This week’s list is heavy on medical and infrastructure-type names, with a smattering of other areas, too. Our Top Pick won’t be the fastest horse but should be a straight-on play on what is looking like a building, construction and infrastructure boom.

We’ve entered a new bull market, and boy are those fun words to type!

Sure, the rally has been thin, led by seven or eight mega-cap tech stocks and, more recently, artificial intelligence. And yes, with inflation and another Fed meeting on the docket this week, a huge bucket of cold water could be thrown in the market’s face in the next 48 hours. But as of this moment, stocks are the healthiest they’ve been since 2021, and that means we’re keeping our foot on the growth pedal. So today we’re adding another potential technology leader that’s a very recent recommendation from Mike Cintolo in Cabot Growth Investor.

Nothing new here. I’m going to keep it fairly short this week. We are firmly in the doldrums of earnings season and will be for the next several weeks.

Of course, what might seem like a slow crawl to the next earnings season, it’s only a month away. JPMorgan (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) are just a couple of the notable names that report earnings July 14.

The June 16, 2023 expiration cycle is finally upon us and we have several positions due to expire. However, since we are using an income wheel approach, we will remain mechanical and allow our KO short put, GDX short and PFE 40 covered call to carry through expiration. Unless any drastic price action occurs prior to expiration, I will look to sell more options premium in each of the aforementioned stocks at the onset of next week.

Other than handling a few trades at expiration, nothing has changed: I continue to search for positions to add to the mix. I would love to see a pullback, preferably a close of the numerous price gaps below in the major indices, before placing a trade.

Before we get started, our next Live Analyst Briefing with Q&A is scheduled for June 15, 2023, at 12 p.m. ET, where we will be discussing the options market, giving a detailed look at open positions, strategies used, and will have a follow-up with live questions and answers.

The market sits at a pivotal juncture with volatility sitting at the lowest levels in a few years. The week ahead is littered with market-moving events. But Wednesday is the day that offers up the most intriguing and potentially market-moving event. Wednesday at 2:00 ET we have the Fed’s rate decision, FOMC statement, and economic projections followed by Chairman Jerome Powell speaking at 2:30. I would expect to see price action vacillate widely immediately after the event. I’ll be paying close attention to see how the VIX reacts prior to and after the statement.

With the market rallying as of late, the All-Weather portfolio is now up 6.0%, with the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) and SPDR GLD Shares ETF (GLD) doing the heavy lifting, up 19.3% and 6.5%, respectively.


Both bond funds (TLT and IEF) and the commodity fund (DBC) continue to lag behind, but that is the yin-yang protective nature of the All-Weather portfolio just doing its job.



Only one of our positions has been rolled so far. We still have four June 16, 2023 calls due to expire this week, As a result, expect to see quite a few alerts come through early in the week as we roll our positions and sell more premium going out 30 to 60 days.

Ahead of a big week for the market, the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq all rose marginally last week.

Ahead of a big week for the market, the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq all rose marginally last week.

The markets traded sideways through most of April. But since then, the choppiness has returned—along with worries about the uncertainty regarding the debt ceiling, the expiration of the immigration-limiting legislation, and ongoing debate about the possibility of a recession.

Yet, economically speaking, the trends are still healthy. Manufacturing has held up, employment continues to rise, and job openings are still underutilized (as you can tell if you’ve been in a restaurant lately!).

For the first time in weeks, and maybe even months, the market’s advance felt broader as more and more stocks participated in the market rally. That, as well as the VIX getting clobbered, has me encouraged … for now.

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

The U.S. presidential election, “only” seventeen months away, is shaping up to follow a predictable script. Investors should keep their personal views and their investing process separate.

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.

The market finished solidly in the black thanks to a strong end to last week; interestingly, while the intermediate-term trend is still neutral overall, a couple of broad up days from here could kick it into the green. Even better is the action of leading stocks, with more names emerging and, importantly, more names holding their recent upmoves. To be clear, there’s still a lot of proving to do, but overall, we think the evidence has taken another step in the right direction—we’ll move up our Market Monitor to a level 6 and see what comes from here.

This week’s list has a ton of strong names and other good setups that could lift should the market continue to improve. Our Top Pick looks like the leader of the improving cybersecurity group, having lifted out of a long consolidation. Dips should be buyable.

The past week has seen a reversal of the bullishness in Greentech, with five of the past six trading sessions down days and nearly two-thirds of stocks in our coverage universe lower over the past week too. Interestingly, our benchmark index, the Wilderhill Clean Energy Index, has seen much more bearishness among its 78 components, with 70 of them lower the past week. Comparing the two shows that EVs and batteries, which the Wilderhill holds a lot of, are the very poor performers. The good performers, most of which the Wilderhill doesn’t hold, are nuclear-related stocks, infrastructure companies, and organic food-related stocks.

We briefly discuss our thoughts on valuation and raise our price target on shares of a consumer staples company and introduce a new Buy rating on a retail company.

Prices have been pushed lower across the board for stocks and crypto, as traders look to appropriately price riskier assets in a rising interest rate environment. The VIX has moved higher and is now over 23 as demand for option protection has increased.

Correlation between stocks and crypto assets have been positive, especially in recent months. According to Bloomberg, and Arcane Research, BTC has a correlation to the S&P of .40. For BTC to truly hedge, it would be important to see inverse correlation via a negative coefficient.

This week we review earnings from one of our companies and provide updates on others. Our podcast covers these topics and some thoughts on why waving off rising interest rates because they are “fully discounted” may not be a good idea.

The rise in interest rates and the Russia-Ukraine situation are roiling markets and the Fed will soon begin reducing its $9 trillion holdings of Treasury bonds, putting a dent in liquidity that was propping up markets. This is impacting stocks, especially the tech-heavy Nasdaq market.
Agricultural and food markets are also volatile since almost one-quarter of the world’s grain comes from Russia and Ukraine. Across Ukraine’s farm belt, silos are stuck with 15 million tons of corn from the autumn harvest – most of which should have been hitting world markets by now. Impacted by supply-chain bottlenecks and surging freight rates, the $120 billion global grains trade is bracing for upheavals and severe shortages, not to mention political instability.

The big market rebound has petered. And ugliness might be resuming.

The waning of war panic and relief about the Fed’s March 0.25% rate hike have given way to new concerns. There may be a new round of economic fallout from the war as Europe proposes additional sanctions on Russia. There are also growing concerns about economic growth going forward because of inflation and a more aggressive Fed.

The sharp recovery from the recent bottom has leveled off, at least for now. From here, the prognosis looks murky at best.
New concerns have arisen. There is worry that Europe will impose additional sanctions on Russia, which may include natural gas. That would certainly increase the negative economic fallout from the war. Also, there is increasing concern about slowing economic growth later this year and next.

For more than a year, gold remained stuck in a holding pattern while other metals roared higher in response to global manufacturing demand and supply shortages. All the while, the global economic and geopolitical situation was becoming increasingly tenuous, prompting us to repeatedly wonder when a flight to the safety of gold would transpire.

As market conditions continue to shift, with large-cap U.S. stocks resuming an uptrend in the past two weeks, we are once again making some changes within the tactical Undiscovered Portfolio.

The Update includes comments on earnings from recommended companies, other updates and the Catalyst Report, a powerful tool that anyone can use for finding attractive turnaround stocks. In the April monthly edition we highlight three companies with new CEOs, and summarize our deep-dive into the cannabis industry including six companies whose shares look appealing for long-term investors. We also discuss a spin-off which is our feature recommendation.

Stocks had their second straight bad day today to close out the quarter. At day’s end, the Dow had sunk 550 points, the Nasdaq dropped 222 points and many growth stocks got hit hard.

For its most recent quarter, this REIT posted FFO of $1.85 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $1.71 per share. The company also surpassed revenue forecasts, reporting $412.49 million for the quarter. The shares have a current annual dividend yield of 2.53%, paid quarterly.

This auto and truck dealer reported third-quarter 2021 adjusted earnings of $4.47 per share, up 54% from last year and beating analysts’ earnings estimates of $3.54.

ZoomInfo (ZI) reported Q3 results yesterday that surpassed expectations. Revenue was up 60% to $197.6 million (54% organic growth). Growth with enterprise customers continues to shine as ZoomInfo now has over 1,250 customers (74% customer growth) with over $100K in annual contract value (ACV) and total ACV growth of 85% from these customers (ZoomInfo has over 25,000 total customers).

This tech company beat analysts’ earnings projections by $0.20 last quarter. The shares have a current dividend yield of 2.21%, paid quarterly.

This educational provider is set to pay a walloping $7.01 in special dividends if you are a stockholder as of October 29, 2021.

Following up on today’s weekly earnings review we have a few positions we’re going to step aside from. Big picture, I like the way the market is shaping up. However, we have a portfolio flush with positions and while most are looking good to great we have a few that are slipping, and some that lack near-term catalysts yet have a modest profit. It feels like a good time to lighten up. Here’s what I suggest.

Earnings season kicked off in our portfolio this week and will accelerate into November. Here are brief updates on what we’ve heard, and what I think.

This private equity firm beat EPS estimates by $0.26 last quarter. The shares have a current dividend yield of 4.86%, paid quarterly.

This holding company is set to release earnings on November 1. The company is expected to see earnings rise by 14.03% annually over the next five years.

This giant auto manufacturer is expected to grow its annual earnings by 24.5% over the next five years. The shares have a current dividend yield of 2.5%, paid semi-annually.

Earnings for this Ireland-based airline are forecasted to grow at an annual rate of 58.4% over the next five years.

This Israeli-based baby food company is spreading its wings with its toddler and kid shakes moving into Walmart stores. Please note, these shares are speculative, so please don’t load up on them.

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.