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.

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.

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!

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

Today we are jumping into a small-cap biotech company that has a drug delivery platform that could completely revolutionize how injectable drugs are delivered.

The short version is that millions of people that require injections could, if all goes well, just take a pill instead.



While the risks are meaningful with any biotech, so too is the potential. Early data shows this platform works, and already there are programs being designed to deliver treatments for osteoporosis, Type-2 diabetes and arthritis.



It’s all inside this month’s Issue.

The market’s correction is about a month old, and so far it’s been fairly garden variety, with some potholes but not much big-picture abnormal action. And, this week, we’re seeing a very encouraging bounce, with most indexes recouping half of their decline in just two days and some growth stocks already testing new high ground. We’re not out of the woods yet, but we’re holding what we own (some of which act great) and fine-tuning our watch list should the trend turn back up.

Thank you for subscribing to the Cabot Undervalued Stocks Advisor. We hope you enjoy reading the October 2021 issue.

Volatility is a value/contrarian investors’ friend. With the markets becoming more volatile, we’ve made some changes to the portfolio this past month. We recently added ConocoPhillips (COP), a major oil and gas producer that is also an undervalued cash flow machine at current commodity prices.

The current market is giving investors headaches, but it’s not unusual in Greentech to find savvy investors looking past the near-term economic fears and focusing on companies that are tapping into what promises to be terrific growth from de-carbonizing the economy.

This issue, we highlight a small cap stock with amazing engineering savvy at a minor, but essential, feature of electric vehicles. Management expects it can grow revenue about 50% every year through the rest of the decade as automaker customers begin to churn out EVs. It’s in the early stages of growth and is seeing strong fund buying as well as exceptional technicals.



We also highlight three ESG stocks showing the best technicals in the group, as part of our recurring ESG Three, give the current sector outlook indicated by our Greentech Timer, and provide a detailed rundown of the stocks in our current portfolios. We have some ratings changes and refreshed sell-stop recommendations for many of our holdings.



Read through for more details.

Our Cabot Tides are yet to flash a green light, and thus we’re content to hold our strong, profitable stocks, but also to keep a chunk of cash on the sideline.

The market found its mojo after the Fed vaguely insinuated that it could conceivably consider cutting rates before the end of the year. But it looks like the momentum is gone.

We’re looking at economic data that could push interest rates upward (rising food price inflation and business expansion) and we’re also looking at economic data that could push rates downward (GDP potentially falling due to China tariffs, and slowing employment numbers).

Emerging markets (EEM) and Chinese stocks in particular continue to struggle a bit this week. The EEM is trading right at its 200-day moving average and below its 50-day moving average so the portfolio remains in a defensive stance.

Amidst the uncertainty investors are gravitating toward dividend stocks. You’re in the right place at the right time.

Altogether it felt like a calm week. Considering the worsening performance of the S&P 600 Small Cap Index, which broke below its comfort zone, and the S&P 500, now 6% off its high, our portfolio’s resiliency continues to stand out.

Our Cabot Tides are still clearly negative, and in recent days the selling pressure has broadened out, causing more stocks and sectors to take on water.

Looking at the broad market we see that the S&P 500 is just 4% off its recent high, has thus far held above support around 2,800 and remains above its long-term (200-day) moving average line. The Nasdaq dipped to its May 13 low near 7,627, but it too is above its long-term moving average line.

Emerging and global markets struggled this week as our Emerging Market Timer remained negative, with the EEM clearly trading below its 20-day and 50-day moving averages.

A potential positive catalyst has turned distinctly negative—a swing and a miss. What does this mean for the market going forward?

Many of our stocks are still recovering from the steep stock market downturn that occurred in the fourth quarter of 2018. As long as their fundamentals (profits, valuation, etc.) remain strong, I’m going to give those stocks some rope and allow them to recover.

Earnings continue to grow at this Chinese internet company, consistently beating analysts’ forecasts.

Headed into the event our position is in fantastic shape as the stock is trading marginally above our short strike price.

Crista has two rating changes today and reports on another with a good 2020 outlook.

Earnings and occupancy are up for this REIT. The shares have a current annual dividend of 5.87%, paid quarterly.

We’re putting a little cash back to work tonight, buying a half-sized position in this application performance management stock, which will leave us with around 23% on the sideline.

This software company is expected to grow more than 43% next year.

The market was met with some selling as investors returned from a long weekend, with sentiment souring after Apple said they’re unlikely to meet Q1 guidance due to supply and demand issues from China due to the effects of the coronavirus.

In the past 30 days, 33 analysts have boosted their EPS estimate for this giant tech company.

Sell the remaining half of this portfolio stock.

Marijuana stocks have been building a meaningful bottom since November—and there are good and bad aspects to that.

The bullish stock market is boosting growth at this diversified financial company.

Tyler updates us on four Cabot Early Opportunity Stocks.

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.