Current Market Outlook


We traded in our crystal ball years ago, especially when it comes to short-term predictions, but our screens over the weekend told a clear tale: While it’s not 1999 out there, many growth stocks and indexes have enjoyed good moves of late, and when you combine that with some signs of complacency, a retrenchment looks possible. (Today, in fact, might be the start of that, as many growth stocks were hit.) Still, this isn’t some grand market call—overall, the environment remains the same, with some divergent and rotational action, but also more and more names acting well—but our point is more to make sure you’re still sticking with great-looking stocks at decent entry points, as opposed to chasing things higher. We’ll leave our Market Monitor unchanged this week.

This week’s list has a bunch of strong names thanks to recent earnings reports and other news items. Our Top Pick is Ambarella (AMBA), which staged a massive blastoff on earnings—we’re OK starting small here or on dips.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Academy Sports and Outdoors (ASO)	45	43-46	38-39
Ambarella (AMBA)	136	132-138	112-115
Asana Inc. (ASAN)	95	88-92.5	75-78
Avalara (AVLR)	188	180-185	164-167
Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG)	1895	1850-1900	1700-1760
Floor & Décor (FND)	125	122-126	110-112
Macy’s, Inc. (M)	22	21-22	18.5-19
Nutanix (NTNX)	44	41.5-44	36.5-37.5
Quanta Services (PWR)	115	109-113	97.5-99.5
TX (TX)	54	51.5-53.5	46.5-47.5

Thanks to all of you who joined us for our Cabot Wealth Summit in August. It was a great few days—lots of new ideas to share amid a backdrop of a still bullish market.

Sentiment continues to be bullish, but cautious. And Value stocks are still leading Growth. So far in 2021, we are seeing double-digit returns across both styles, with the exception of small-cap growth stocks, which are up 7.6% year-to-date.



The Dow Jones Industrial Average has stayed above 35,000, propped up by a fabulous earnings season. According to FactSet, 87% of S&P 500 companies reported both a positive EPS and revenue surprises.



The economy continues strengthening, with a nice drop in the unemployment rate, to 5.2%. Home sales are helping tremendously. Although inventory continues to be a challenge, the rise in prices (18.6%) are helping to mitigate that.



Consumer confidence remains strong, although we are still battling COVID, and hoping that the variant does not derail all the good progress.



In the meantime, I’m constantly searching for new ideas for you, and am pleased that our portfolio continues to outperform.



Please don’t hesitate to email me with your thoughts and questions. I look forward to hearing from you.



Happy Investing!

Today’s new addition has all the attributes we look for in a small-cap software stock.

The company is young, management is insanely smart, the products fit a huge need, growth is 30%+, and the sales team is growing quickly.



In short, it’s an extremely attractive opportunity. Which is why we’re jumping in right after the company came public.



Enjoy!

Thank you for subscribing to the Cabot Turnaround Letter. We hope you enjoy reading the September 2021 issue.

While the stock market continues to set new record highs, oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) companies have been left behind. Yet, at current commodity prices, which we believe are sustainable, several companies have shares that trade at surprisingly high free cash flow yields, some as high as 24%. We make our case for five stocks.



Related to this, our featured recommendation is Marathon Oil Company (MRO), a mid-cap oil-focused E&P company. Its strong fundamentals, including a high-quality asset base, strong free cash flow and a solid balance sheet, make it particularly attractive.



We highlight three former Cabot Turnaround Letter winners whose shares have retreated since our exit. These now look interesting once again.
In this issue we also discuss three one-off contrarian ideas that have considerable appeal.



During the month, we had a few ratings changes: we moved Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/B) to a Hold, and moved Albertsons (ACI) and Oaktree Specialty Lending (OCSL) from Buy to Sell.



Please feel free to send me your questions and comments. This newsletter is written for you. A great way to get more out of your letter is to let me know what you are looking for.



I’m best reachable at Bruce@CabotWealth.com. I’ll do my best to respond as quickly as possible.

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

This past week was vacation week – a valuable respite from the stresses of investing and other features of daily life. We now return to the investing desk, ready for what could be a very interesting remaining four months of the stock market year.



There hasn’t been much recent news on our names, so we provide a bit more color on some of the issues surrounding Arcos Dorados (ARCO) and some other names. We would like to see a market pullback to bring shares of otherwise attractive companies back to attractive valuations. However, even in the current market, we are starting to find appealing stocks again and will bring them to you.



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.



I’m best reachable at Bruce@CabotWealth.com. I’ll do my best to respond as quickly as possible.



Thanks!

Greentech peaked in February and bottomed in May. There are still headwinds – as there are for many growth stocks – but we’re seeing the sector build a base for a resumption of its long-term bull move. We’re also seeing more stocks that are setting up for long-term success and more predictable performance from our current holdings.

This issue, we examine one of the leading providers of an essential technology for residential solar systems, a fast-growing market. The last two quarters for home-based solar have been the best ever in the U.S. Our pick this week is gaining market share with a unique approach that makes systems more efficient and more reliable. It’s also expanding into segments that could quadruple sales in coming years.



We also have newly recommended ratings and sell-stops for many of our current portfolio holdings.



Read through for more details.

Up, up and away! The S&P 500 rose 1.52%, the Dow advanced 0.96%, and the Nasdaq climbed 2.82% last week, aided by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s dovish commentary.

There is no doubt this year’s rally has been one of the most impressive rallies market participants have ever seen. More than 50 new closing highs and over 200 trading sessions without a 5% pullback defines the power and consistency of this rally. And as we have all witnessed, the slightest pullback seems to act as a frenzied feeding ground for buyers.

The bull market remains intact, so I continue to recommend that you be heavily invested in stocks that help achieve your investing goals.

Today’s featured stock is a speculative suggestion—a small company with great potential to grow as the market for electric vehicle charging booms.



As for the current portfolio, most of our stocks look good, and many are hitting new highs, so I’m downgrading three to hold because they are ripe for correction.



Lastly, a reminder that because of the Labor Day holiday, next week’s issue will be published on Tuesday, September 7.



Details inside.

Current Market Outlook


Last week was definitely a good one for the bulls, with the indexes acting well but also many individual growth stocks scoring some great gains (and most of those came after tests of support earlier this month). Interestingly, the strength didn’t come at the expense of the rest of the market, either, which is a pleasant change from the rotational wars of late. If this strength can be sustained, it’ll be time to get more aggressive, but to us, the market still has some proving to do, especially with the chop factor, which continues to lead to some dramatic pullbacks in stocks that have recently pushed higher. All in all, we’re encouraged by what we see, including an increasing number of setups and breakouts—we’re OK putting money to work, but buying dips and starting small continue to mostly be your best bet, along with banging out partial profits on the way up.

This week’s list has a bunch of solid actors, including some that are putting the finishing touches on multi-month launching pads. But for our Top Pick, we’re going with an earnings winner—Palo Alto Networks (PANW) is part of the strong cybersecurity group and just leapt out of its own long rest. Try to buy on dips.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Alkermes (ALKS)	31	29-30.5	25.5-26.5
Continental Resources (CLR)	38	37-38.5	32.5-33.5
Horizon Therapeutics (HZNP)	109	106-110	96-98
Inspire Medical Systems (INSP)	222	217-225	194-198
Kulicke and Soffa Industries (KLIC)	70	65-68	57-59
MRVI (MRVI)	60	55-58	47-49
MercadoLibre, Inc. (MELI)	1879	1800-1900	1620-1670
NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA)	227	219-227	197-201
Palo Alto Networks (PANW)	459	440-455	395-405
Sonos (SONO)	39	38-40	34-35

The S&P 500 was up 13% for the quarter, making it the best first quarter since 1998 and the best overall quarter since 2009. It’s impossible to predict short-term gyrations in the market, at this point, it looks like a slow slog higher for the market for the rest of the year. It is an ideal environment for dividend stocks and only once change to the portfolio as we are selling one position.

The market has been jumping around lately as it digests the Fed’s announcement last week that it expects to hold interest rates steady until 2020 (and just one hike in that year) and would stop shrinking its balance sheet later in 2019.

The MSCI Emerging Market index (EEM) is up 9% so far in 2019 but has basically hit the pause button in March.

The March flooding in Nebraska and neighboring Midwest and Great Plains states is devastating to farmers, crops and livestock. Consumers can expect prolonged food price inflation that reaches around the globe.

Right now, keep new positions small and don’t get fooled into thinking we’re on a one-way conveyor belt higher. If this bull market is to stay healthy and continue, we’ll need to see a pause in leading stocks and some catch up performance from areas of the market that haven’t done much lately.

Remain bullish. The market continues to act well, and while the broad market has been futzing around for nearly a month, our market timing indicators are positive and most leading stocks are in good shape. Only change tonight is putting one position back on Buy.

We have the ideal environment for the relative performance of dividend stocks. You are in the right place at the right time. The portfolio has had another good week and one rating change moving a position back to Hold.

U.S. stocks markets are now continuing their rebound from the horrendous fourth-quarter 2018 market action. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ indexes look quite bullish, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) lags a bit.

Today is the expiration of our first positions.

This energy stock reported a fourth-quarter earnings and revenue beat.

There are top five holdings of this growth fund.

This high-yield preferred stock is issued by a company that is making money off of storing and crunching Big Data.

While almost all of our Covered Call trades are working well, this stock fell through our stop yesterday afternoon.

This bio-pharma company is seeing fantastic results with its Alzheimer’s studies.

Most of our stocks have been heading north but two have diverged from the pack and are headed south.

This retailer presented at the January 13 ICR Conference 2020 and moves from Buy to Strong Buy.

This small regional bank looks undervalued, and has an annual current yield of 3.75%, paid quarterly.

This portfolio stock has gone vertical today after the company announced that management sees Q4 revenue near $69 million (+44%) versus expectations of $59 million and billings near $100 million versus previous guidance of $82 million to $88 million.

Trading at a P/E of just above 9, this annuity company looks like a good value play.

A portfolio stock is volatile in wake of preliminary Q4 earnings report.

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.