Before we dive too deep into this week’s idea I have decided to sell our PureStorage (PSTG) stock position, which will leave us without a stock or option positions, as the stock has not been participating in the recent market rally. This could prove to be a mistake, but I would prefer to lock in our small profit, while at the same time raise some cash for upcoming trades.



Moving on …



The market added to recent gains last week, as the S&P 500 had its best week since July. The S&P 500 rose 1.8%, the Dow climbed 1.6%, and the Nasdaq added 2.2%.



The rally came on the back of better-than-expected earnings from several well-known stocks. The big banks dominated the earnings calendar and the sector’s pandemic-era trading boom fueled the continued bullishness.

Markets rallied strongly last week, with growth stocks in particular showing strength, so the odds are improving that the recent correction is over and new highs are ahead. If so, today’s recommendation of a data-warehousing company will likely thrive.

As for selling, I have no recommendations today, just one downgrade to hold. And I’ll be following Tesla carefully, reading the quarterly report on Wednesday, and watching the stock’s reaction.



Details inside.

This year has been about as choppy and tricky as we can remember, so nothing the market would throw at us from here would come as a surprise. That said, there’s no question the snapback of the past couple of weeks has been very encouraging—the major indexes have rebounded beautifully, with many regaining their 50-day lines, and individual stocks (especially growth stocks) have done great, with more and more moving back to (or out above) their prior highs. We also like that the bounce has been broad, with the on-again, off-again, rotational action taking a backseat to outright buying. Obviously, the market isn’t totally out of the woods, as most indexes are still range-bound and earnings season is upon us, which will often change the trajectory of things. But we always go with what we see, and the odds are increasing that the September/early October correction is over. We’re moving our Market Monitor back up to a level 7, and could go higher than that if the good vibes continues.

This week’s list represents the broad advance of late, with stocks of all different spots and stripes making the cut. Our Top Pick is Zscaler (ZS), which has lifted to new price and relative performance highs after a six-week pullback.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Atlassian (TEAM)	415	392-405	360-365
Cameco Corporation (CCJ)	26	25-27	21.5-22.5
Continental Resources (CLR)	52	49-51	42.5-43.5
Datadog (DDOG)	157	152-158	135-138
MGM Resorts (MGM)	48	47-48.5	42.5-43.5
Range Resources (RRC)	24	21.5-23	18.5-19
Snowflake (SNOW)	338	322-333	286-292
Tesla, Inc. (TSLA)	870	845-865	760-770
XENE (XENE)	31	29.5-31.5	25-26
Zscaler (ZS)	301	292-302	262-268

In a market facing inflation, a Taiwan potential takeover, rising oil prices, Explorer stocks had a good week, especially Cloudfare (NET), up twenty points for the week and Sea (SE) is back up to 350, up 7% yesterday. We need to remain confident and my pick today is a niche player in corporate aviation markets.

Here is your October Wall Street’s Best Digest.

In the past month, the markets have been seesawing—mostly due to Washington shenanigans—but the overall long-term picture continues to be bright. The rise in housing prices seems to be mitigating, the unemployment rate dropped to 4.8%, and FactSet expects the S&P 500 companies to produce earnings growth of more than 27% for this quarter. So, the fundamentals appear to be in place for a longer bull run, although as I often say—it’s a stock-picker’s, not a dartboard, market.



And with that in mind, our contributors have found some very interesting companies for you this month.

Today, we are recommending a South African company that trades in the U.S. It looks highly compelling:

• High insider ownership (insiders own ~45% of shares outstanding)
• Strong momentum (stock is near 52 week high)
• 100%+ revenue growth
• Reasonable valuation: P/E ratio of 13x
• Low share count (only 5.4MM shares outstanding)
• No debt

All the details are inside this month’s Issue. Enjoy!

There are a lot of reasons why it’s easier to make more money if you already have money. But I will just focus on one undisputable fact, the rich have access to opportunities and investments that most of us do not.

Private equity (PE) or venture capital (VC) is a shining example of such privileged access. PE or VC is money provided to young and growing businesses that otherwise wouldn’t have access to sufficient capital. For ages, these highly profitable investments had been the sole domain of the very wealthy who were able to make fortunes by lending to growing companies at very favorable terms for themselves.



But times are changing.



As financial markets have grown in sophistication, private equity investing is no longer the exclusive domain of the wealthy. There are securities trading on the market today that enable regular investors to mimic the very same money-making strategies employed by the rich and famous.



In this issue, I highlight one of the very best such securities on the market. It has a phenomenal track record with a high dividend yield and a catalyst to move higher in the near future. These companies also tend to thrive in a strong economy and at this point in the economic cycle.

The three leading indexes pushed higher this past week as the S&P 500 rose 0.78%, the Dow gained 1.22%, and the Nasdaq added 0.08%.



Following a choppy and volatile start to the week, on Thursday politicians kicked the debt-ceiling can down the road, which seemed to make investors happy, at least for the day. Unfortunately, that investor excitement was short-lived as the September jobs report on Friday came in at 194,000 new jobs added, well under the expectation of 500,000. The market managed to close Friday only slightly lower despite the bad news.

It’s been over a month since the major indexes hit their peaks, and while there’s been no major move to the downside yet, the odds of one grow with time, particularly considering that we’re still in October (often a difficult month). Thus, I have no trouble recommending a slightly more cautious attitude at the moment.

But there’s always something attractive to buy, and this week it’s another stock in the vast and complex semiconductor industry. This will be our fourth in the industry.



As for selling, I’m working to hold a bit of cash until the climate improves, and the easy choice to sell today is our biggest loser, Global-E Online (GLBE).



Details inside.

Current Market Outlook


In true 2021 fashion, just when the market looked ready to go over the falls last week the buyers stepped in, pushing the major indexes sharply higher (recouping nearly 50% of the month-long correction in just three days and seeing many individual stocks pop as well). It’s certainly encouraging, but we need to see a bit more—by our measures, we haven’t seen confirmation of a new intermediate-term uptrend (most indexes remain below their 50-day lines or stuck in the middle of multi-month ranges) and, while a few stocks have popped to new highs, most individual names are in the same no-man’s-land environment. Longer term, the strong, broad bounce is a good sign the overall bull market is alive and well, but near term, it’s still uncertain whether we’ll see another leg lower or more vicious rotation. You shouldn’t be in your bunker, but keeping new buys small and holding some cash makes sense as we see if the strength can persist.

This week’s list is heavier on turnaround and commodity-related names, with many beginning to emerge from long rest periods. Our Top Pick is LPL Financial (LPLA), which won’t be your fastest mover but has staged a good-looking breakout in recent weeks.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Acuity Brands (AYI)	206	203-210	182-185
Applovin (APP)	87	83-86	73-74.5
Builders FirstSource (BLDR)	55	54.5-56	49-50
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (GT)	19	18-19	16.3-16.8
Hilton Worldwide Holdings (HLT)	143	139-142	126-128
LPL Financial Holdings (LPLA)	167	165-169	148-150
The Mosaic Company (MOS)	42	39-41	35-36
Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD)	193	187-192	165-168
Teck Resources Limited (TECK)	28	26-27.5	23-24
UPST (UPST)	311	285-300	240-250

The big news that affected the market this week was, of course, the dreaded yield curve inversion. This happens when the 10-year Treasury yield goes below the 2-year yield.

This week is a still familiar story in the portfolio, with defensive stocks thriving and moving still higher.

U.S. stock markets have exhibited a high degree of volatility in recent weeks. There are lots of factors contributing to the turmoil, which will ebb and flow, probably for the rest of our lives. So let’s just circle back to why we’re here: We’re here to invest in stocks because over the long term, stocks outperform fixed income investments.

The market has been up, down and all over the place lately. So have our stocks. Oddly enough, from last Thursday’s close through yesterday’s close our portfolio is relatively unchanged—down just 2% using a simple average of each stock’s weekly return.

Remain cautious, but stay flexible. Our Cabot Tides are effectively back on the fence as the upmove of the past few days has been encouraging—a bit more strength could restore the Tides green light.

The market has undergone a radical personality transformation since I released the July issue last week. I’m not hitting the panic button, yet. But it is certainly a situation I will closely monitor.

Emerging and international markets are holding their own as U.S. markets hit new highs in the wake of modest interest rate cuts by the Fed.

Today I want to address the two positions which have March options expiring today.

Zacks just upgraded this pharma stock to ‘Buy’, based on rising earnings estimates.

Because of all the craziness out there I’m pushing back the stock section of this week’s update to tomorrow.

With the market down more than 30% since it peaked a month ago, it’s worth reviewing the reasons for the quick crash.

The quarter’s revenue surged in their Europe and licensing businesses, and lagged in their Americas Retail, Americas Wholesale and Asia businesses.

Shares of this conglomerate have declined to a very discounted value, but once the current volatility lessens, a case for a turnaround will be likely.

Remain defensive. The market took another leg lower today, though our four remaining stocks in the Model Portfolio hung in there.

This eyecare company is forecasted to grow by 16% next year.

We’re taking another incremental step to focus our portfolio today by selling one more stock.

We’re taking another step to adjust our market exposure today.

This streaming company is looking like a bargain at these prices.

The market continued its crash today, with the major indexes losing a bunch more ground on virus-related economic fears.

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.