I’m going to keep it short today as we enter the first of two holiday-shortened weeks. The focus, as always, continues to be adding a few positions to balance out the mix of options strategies and our deltas. As it stands, we only have an iron condor heading into the January expiration cycle, but if all goes well, we should have an opportunity to add one or two January trades, and with 52 days left until February expiration, I will also be looking to add positions there as well.

I’m going to keep it short today as we enter the first of two holiday-shortened weeks. The focus, as always, continues to be adding a few positions to the mix. As it stands, we have five open positions with one position, WFC, due to expire this week. The rest are due to expire in January. My intent with WFC is to wheel our position, which simply means, if the stock closes below our put strike of 44 we will be issued shares and begin the process, once again, of selling calls against our newly acquired shares.

The much-anticipated Santa Claus rally has yet to materialize on Wall Street, though at least the recent losses mostly stopped for the indexes last week. The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged, the Dow gained 0.88%, and the Nasdaq fell 2.5%.

As I stated last week, we’re just three weeks away from earnings season. However, the next two weeks leave us with little to no trading opportunities as Wall Street pretty much closes up shop until after the holiday season passes. I expect that we will see a few opportunities during the second week of January, but the next two weeks are certain to be slow from an earnings announcement standpoint.

The much-anticipated Santa Claus rally has yet to materialize on Wall Street, though at least the recent losses mostly stopped for the indexes last week. The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged, the Dow gained 0.88%, and the Nasdaq fell 2.5%.

In the December Issue of Cabot Early Opportunities we look at five companies growing nicely and with share prices that have held up reasonably well in recent months.

Our top pick this month is a small-cap biopharma stock that just made a timely acquisition this week. I also feature a potential biotech superstar, an emerging MedTech name, a solar energy specialist and an online retailer that we’ve seen before.

As always, there should be something for everyone in this month’s Issue!

First, a couple housekeeping notes: With Santa coming in a few days, there will be no Cabot Profit Booster issue next Tuesday. Have a great holiday weekend!

First, a housekeeping note: With Santa coming in a few days, there will be no issue next Monday, but we will send a “full” update next Monday (in place of the issue) to keep in touch, and we’ll be around if you have any questions. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

As for the market, the post-Fed action was clearly a downer and is threatening to reverse the intermediate-term uptrend, which was the lone positive piece of top-down evidence. To this point, we will say many individual stocks have bent but haven’t broken, but the onus is once again on the bulls to step up and offer support. We’ll move our Market Monitor down to a level 4, and it could sink further should the bears keep at it.

The good news is we’re still finding many solid-looking charts, though they’re from all nooks and crannies of the market. Our Top Pick today is in the surprisingly resilient housing group.

Santa Claus hasn’t arrived yet for investors, as stocks are enduring a rough December. As a result, we have two sells today and another rating downgrade. However, we are adding a stock that’s perfect for these turbulent times: a dividend-paying utility that holds up well in sharp sell-offs like this one but features an alternative energy wing that has allowed it to outperform the market for years, even in good times. It’s built for safety and growth and is a longtime favorite of Cabot Dividend Investor Chief Analyst Tom Hutchinson.

Despite a strong start to the week that saw the S&P 500 gain a combined more than 2% Monday and Tuesday, the sellers once again took control, as the index then fell 4.5% Wednesday and Thursday.

Despite a strong start to the week that saw the S&P 500 gain a combined more than 2% Monday and Tuesday, the sellers once again took control, as the index then fell 4.5% Wednesday and Thursday.

We’re just shy of a month away from earnings season, but that doesn’t mean that potential trading opportunities don’t exist. This week we actually have three notable earnings releases in stocks with highly liquid options.

On Tuesday, after the close, Nike (NKE) will report earnings followed by Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL) Wednesday morning. And to top off the week, Micron (MU) will release earnings after the closing bell Wednesday.

The market, and especially the small-cap index, has been a little soft after the Fourth of July holiday weekend, but all things considered it’s hard to say anything is wrong. The move down in U.S. Treasury yields is a bit of a head-scratcher and the noise in the oil market is potentially of interest as consumers ponder charges at the pump. These are noteworthy items but not changing any big-picture thinking at this point.

There is a Fed meeting today. The ultimate oracle of wisdom will bestow their current thinking upon anxious traders.

Before we get into this week’s update, I want to share a few thoughts on my favorite free investing resource: Twitter. From 2006 to 2018, I worked at Eaton Vance and then at Citi, and didn’t really see the use for Twitter. It just seemed like a bunch of people arguing with one another.

Cyclical stocks are getting creamed today. Energy is down the most. But industrials, materials, and financials are getting hit too.

After declining 6% in June, gold enters what is historically one of its most lackadaisical months from a seasonal standpoint.

Today’s note includes ratings changes, the podcast and the Catalyst Report. We publish the Catalyst Report on the Friday after each monthly issue of the Cabot Turnaround Letter.

The S&P 500 closed out the second quarter of 2021 at a record high advancing for a fifth consecutive quarter. Meanwhile the Dow and Nasdaq closed just below records and each of these indexes recorded more than 18 record closes during the first half of the year. Accelerating economic growth is the key to keeping things moving forward.

The second quarter ends today. GDP growth is forecasted to be 8.6% for the quarter, one of the best on record. Earnings for the S&P 500 is expected to grow over 60% over last year’s second quarter.

Encouraging signs for the Greentech sector this week in the market, as we’ve seen a good push over the 200-day moving average in the Wilderhill Clean Energy Index, and the move appears to be sticking better than the prior test in early June.

In our continuing series on deciding how many positions to hold in a stock portfolio, let’s borrow a page from Major League Baseball (MLB). The methods that these teams use managing their players can be applied to investment portfolios.

We have a lot to cover this week, so I’m going to use my intro to cover one company: BBX Capital (BBXIA). Last week, BBX announced that it increased its tender offer to buy back shares up to 8.00 per share, up from 6.75. Currently, the stock is trading at 7.96 and it makes sense to buy shares up to 8.00 as you can immediately sell the shares back to the company at a profit.

There’s good news. The S&P 500 has made a new all-time high. The Nasdaq achieved a new high on Monday. That’s the first new high for the tech-heavy index since early February.

This company is the leading boat and yacht dealer in the U.S., and analysts expect it to grow its earnings by 30% annually over the next five years.

Analysts expect this online automotive marketplace company to grow its earnings by an annual rate of 25.2% over the next five years.

The market continues to be extremely challenging for growth-oriented stocks and many of our names are trading near support levels. It’s one of those environments where, with many stocks down 20% to 40% from their highs, it’s an entirely “normal,” albeit significant, correction. In other words, we expect these environments to come along every now and then, pass, and on we go. Maybe not to new highs straight away, but eventually.

Trading action continues to be sloppy as we move toward the end of the first quarter (ends Wednesday) and toward April. News of the Archegos Capital collapse (a hedge fund) has cast a bit of a shadow over parts of the market as well (financials, some China stocks) as forced liquidations drove huge volatility in stocks (DISCA, TME, SHOP, FTCH and more) late last week.

The top five holdings in this fund are ViacomCBS Inc Class B (VIAC, 3.01% of assets), Wells Fargo & Co (WFC, 2.27%), LyondellBasell Industries NV (LYB, 2.23%), Prudential Financial Inc (PRU, 2.23%), and Marathon Petroleum Corp (MPC, 2.22%). The fund has a current annual dividend yield of 3.35%, paid quarterly.

Wall Street expects this gaming company will increase its annual earnings by 30.18% over the next five years.

The market remains messy and is acting in a one step forward, two steps back fashion, at least where growth stocks are concerned. As of early afternoon today it looks like many of our stocks are testing their lows from earlier this month.

Growth stocks have come under renewed pressure in recent days as the Nasdaq’s recent rally attempt has hit a wall, with a few former leaders already testing their lows. We’ve been cautious for three weeks now, and tonight, we’re going to sell one of our remaining positions.

This utility is expected to grow earnings at an annual rate of 22.90% over the next five years. The shares have a current annual dividend yield of 3.47%, paid quarterly.

The marijuana sector, in general, remains in a correction. The high for the sector was six weeks ago, while the most recent bottom was two and a half weeks ago.

Accolade revealed preliminary Q4 and full-year 2020 results after the bell yesterday and announced a private offering of $250 million convertible notes, with a $37.5 million option (pricing to be determined). The reasons for the offering are the usual – working capital, acquisitions, strategic investments and general corporate purposes.

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.