Current Market Outlook


The major indexes found some decent support last week, rallying back to the top of their ranges, but overall they’re still thrashing around in the same range they’ve occupied since early August, keeping the intermediate-term trend sideways-to-down. The one thing that did change late last week was a bout of rotation, with money flowing into the beaten-down areas (financials, transports, energy, etc.); it’s something to keep an eye on, but we can’t say it’s a new trend quite yet. All in all, the market is showing us a lot of movement, but little net progress—and thus, our overall advice hasn’t changed. We’re keeping our Market Monitor at a level 5, meaning you should be choosy and keep things small on the buy side, while holding some cash and honoring stops and loss limits with your weaker performers.

The good news, as it has been all year, is that there remain many stocks that looks ready to enjoy meaningful upmoves if the market can get its act together. Our Top Pick is New Oriental Education (EDU), a rare China-related stock that’s making new highs on good volume.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Burlington Stores (BURL)	193.95	195-198	179-182
Jacobs Engineering Group (JEC)	89.83	86-88	79.5-81
Meritage Homes (MTH)	102.20	63-66	57.5-59
Neurocrine Biosciences (NBIX)	123.40	95.5-98.5	88-90
New Oriental Education (EDU)	113.97	106-108	98-100
Take-Two Interactive (TTWO)	123.32	129-133	120-122
Tandem Diabetes (TNDM)	74.77	67-70	60-62
Trex Company (TREX)	117.56	80-83	74-76
Twitter (TWTR)	40.37	40.5-42.5	37-38
Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM)	34.43	28-29	25.5-26.5

I hope you had an enjoyable and relaxing summer. Wall Street is back to work this week, and Apple (AAPL) is launching a new product or two next week, so get ready for stocks to start moving again.

Despite the daily focus on the worst aspects of the China tariff story, the fact is that the broad market has built a decent base (albeit loose) over the past month. Repeated tales of doom and gloom aren’t sending it any lower. Thus, I remain long-term bullish, though short-term somewhat cautious.And I continue to recommend that you maintain a portfolio full of diversified stocks that meet your investment goals. Last week’s recommendation was a hot growth stock, so this week we swing back to a conservative dividend-paying stock, one that is performing very well today.As for our current stocks, there are no changes. The last week of August changed little, but going forward, I expect a little more action, ideally to the upside. Details in the issue.

Successful short-selling is more complex than just being “the opposite of long investing.” Shorting goes against the general upward trend in stock prices and against human nature that strives for making companies run better. But as long investors, we can use these short-selling risks to our advantage.

In this issue, we feature six stocks that have large short interest yet have pending turnarounds that could force short-covering.

August has featured one big whipsaw after another, with the major indexes breaking down early in the month and making many dramatic moves since. But the overall evidence really hasn’t changed much—the intermediate-term trend still isn’t up for the market or most stocks, while the longer-term evidence is still mostly bullish. Thus, we’re sticking with a cautious stance. Tonight, we’re selling a small chunk of Okta (OKTA), which leaves us with a cash position of around 36%.
Elsewhere in tonight’s issue, we write about all of our current holdings (including newer addition Carvana) and discuss one major indicator to watch closely and how to find resilient stocks in the market. If today’s rally is for real, we could be putting money to work soon, but we’re content to patiently wait for a decisive green light.

The cannabis sector remains in a correction, but many of our stocks are doing considerably better than the sector. And the sector itself is very likely near a bottom—which I why today’s issue is titled “Buying Opportunity.”
For new investors, it’s a great time to get started.
However, I’m also recommending reducing positions in four of our holdings, always working to put more of our money in the leading stocks—and with these sales, our cash level will rise—hopefully briefly—to 30%.

We are in the late stages of a recovery and bull market. The economy is still strong and the bull market could continue for a while. But the escalation of trade frictions with China is disrupting the situation.
Since the trade war escalated a month ago, the market has fallen every week since. And things might get worse before they get better. The trade war takes a small toll on the economy but it hurts the global economy much more. A faltering global economy would come back and bite us, and perhaps draw the next recession closer.
With no catalyst in sight to fix the current situation and a recession looming somewhere in the not-too-distant future, it makes sense to play defense. Defensive dividend paying stocks are the stars of the market now and may continue to be for a long while.
In this issue I highlight one of the very best defensive dividend stocks on the market. It has rock solid earnings in any environment and the stock should perform well in just about any market.

The market remains under pressure in the short-term, for all the well-publicized reasons, but long-term, the market trend remains up, and many of our stocks are acting well. Today’s recommendation is a repeat, a stock we made money in last year that subsequently had a big correction and is now ready to run again. And it’s got a great story, too!

Current Market Outlook


The market came close to giving an all-clear signal last week, but the endless U.S.-China trade flareup knocked the market back on Friday. Despite the headlines, we still don’t see the environment as a total disaster—the indexes themselves are still holding above their recent lows, and many individual stocks (and most we’re following) are actually more resilient than that. But the bottom line is that little money is being made, and with the intermediate-term trend continuing to point down, you should remain in a cautious stance, keeping new buying on the small side and holding some cash. From here, we’re open to anything—given the pervasive pessimism, a new uptrend wouldn’t shock us, but the onus remains on the bulls to prove they are retaking control before we become more constructive.

This week’s list has a wide mix of stocks that have resisted the market’s downward pull—with some actually advancing despite the environment. Our Top Pick is MasTec (MTZ), a stock we missed a couple of weeks ago but think it can have a sustained advance due to its exposure to many strong markets.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Allakos (ALLK)	77.83	80-84	66-69
Blackstone Group (BX)	49.12	47.5-49.5	42.5-43.5
D. R. Horton (DHI)	66.55	48-49.5	44.5-45
HubSpot (HUBS)	582.89	196-200	178-182
Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS)	97.20	92-95	83-85
LivePerson (LPSN)	58.55	37-39	33-34.5
MasTec, Inc. (MTZ)	66.65	59-61	53.5-54.5
Pinduoduo (PDD)	87.53	28-30	24-25.5
Synopsys (SNPS)	137.53	133-137	122-124
Target (TGT)	124.77	101-105	91-93

The results are in for the month of April. It was fabulous. The S&P rose 9.6%, making it the best single month for the market in six years. It hit an all-time high on Friday.

Sure, the war isn’t over. But the market doesn’t really seem to regard it as a war anymore, more like a blockade situation with the possibility of minor skirmishes. While there is still headline risk, investors have moved beyond this war and are focusing on earnings.

Now before you call me crazy concerning today’s newsletter headline, hear me out.

Even though large-cap names have garnered more than a fair share of attention among investors this year, I think a case can be made that companies with big capitalizations have a lot more room to run higher before they can be truly regarded as “overbought” or “played out.”

The market is digesting the push and pull of higher oil prices, a deeply divided Federal Reserve, prospects for a prolonged blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and fading momentum from the AI trade that helped push markets to all‑time highs earlier this month.

Despite the crosscurrents, the overall tone still tilts bullish, supported by investor comfort (for the time being) with the geopolitical tension, resilience in the U.S. economy, and improving visibility into earnings growth over the coming quarters.

Yesterday, four tech giants, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, representing 22% of the S&P 500’s market value, reported strong quarterly earnings that highlighted the importance of AI.

You might think the above companies and their AI brethren are “asset light” companies but you would be very wrong.

It’s been a glorious April following a miserable March for the market. What happens in May may determine which direction stocks are headed for the rest of the year.

That’s probably overstating things a bit, but May should be crucial for the reasons we discussed last week: namely, the fate of the Iran war, but also the bulk of first-quarter earnings season and the introduction of a new Fed chair.

What war? This market is moving on. We may not be out of the woods yet, but investors are looking beyond the Iran war.

Stocks have already made up all losses from a rough March and then some. The S&P 500 had fallen 7.7% in the month of March by the 30^th. Since then, the index has rallied over 13%. The S&P is now at a higher level than before the war began and is hitting new all-time highs.

The other day I was paid a visit by a roving ISP salesman who was pitching his company’s fledgling internet service over the local monopoly’s. We struck up a conversation and he asked what I did for a living. When I told him, his eyes lit up and he asked, “Got any good stocks you can recommend?”

Without thinking I blurted out, “Anything AI-related. You can’t go wrong.” The advice was only semi-facetious, for there’s undeniably a degree of truth behind it. My instinctive response to that question also prompted me to consider the question: just how long can the broad market continue its “all things AI” run without broader sector participation

Note: I’m out of town this week, so I’ll be a bit briefer on the update today—but I’m still checking my laptop a couple of times a day if you have any questions or comments. I’ll be back at my desk come Monday. Cheers.

WHAT TO DO NOW: Remain optimistic. The market and some leaders have hesitated, but all of our market timing indicators are bullish, and most stocks we own or are watching are working. Last Friday, we bought a half-sized stake in Nebius (NBIS) and added a 3% additional stake in ProShares S&P 500 Fund (SSO); earlier this week, we sold our small remaining position in GE Aerospace (GE); and tonight, we’ll buy a half-sized position (5% of the portfolio ) in Cava (CAVA). We’ll still have 46% in cash or so after these moves.

Despite all the headline noise lately we’re marching deeper into first‑quarter earnings season with the market’s path of least resistance still pointing higher.

Optimism around the extension of the tentative ceasefire in the Middle East has reduced geopolitical anxiety to a seemingly manageable level. The U.S. economy continues to show resilience, and the corporate earnings outlook points toward meaningful growth in the coming quarters and years.

The old saying, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes,” is an apt one for the stock market these last two years.

In early 2025, the S&P 500 raced to new all-time highs before peaking in late January/early February, only to get dragged down in March and April by a geopolitical crisis (tariffs/Liberation Day), before rallying in a V-shaped pattern as the severity of the crisis abated.

The market turned on the afterburners. The S&P 500 made up all the March losses and catapulted to a brand new high in a remarkably short time. It’s a market that sure looks like it wants to go higher. But stocks are being held back this week by more war uncertainty.

The current ceasefire with Iran expires on Wenesday night. Talks may not happen, and war talk is growing. The resumption of the war will almost certainly prompt a decline in the market. Aside from that near-term threat, investors are clearly looking past this war. Hopefully, it won’t last much longer.

The market came roaring back to new highs last week after a tough March. But the war isn’t over yet, and there could be more bouncing around in the weeks ahead.

Investors are clearly already looking past this war, as there is a high degree of optimism that hostilities will soon end. There is probably still a big rally or two left in the tank when the war actually ends. Sure, there is still headline risk in the meantime. But the war is clearly fading as the biggest market catalyst and giving way to earnings.

The shares of this restaurant company were also just initiated as ‘Outperform’ by Baird.

Given the shakiness of the broad market, we want to be reducing our exposure to weak stocks today. As noted in yesterday’s update, we’re going to reduce risk today by taking partial profits in one of our positions.

Zack’s recently raised this chemical company’s rating to ‘Strong Buy’, citing rising earnings estimates.

In my last major update about marijuana stocks, I wrote, “odds are the correction is not over yet. Odds are, the correction will go longer, until traders’ enthusiasm for the sector has truly cooled. Happily, the more time passes, the more the fundamentals of these fast-growing companies get to catch up to the stocks!”

In the past 30 days, five analysts have raised their earnings estimates for this Canadian auto dealer.

The top five stocks in this fund are indicated in this article.

Five analysts have increased their earnings estimates for this internet mailing company in the past 30 days.

The shares of this tech company were recently upgraded to ‘Positive’ by Susquehanna, who cited the company’s ‘hypergrowth’ and raised its price target to $41.

This stock released earnings yesterday, so I’m discussing its share price, its fourth quarter earnings report and the company’s outlook. But I also want to talk about the differences between thriving companies and failing companies, and the murky in-between.

We list the top five holdings of this Japanese closed-end fund.

At this point it seems prudent to trim three underperforming positions that haven’t been working well for us—especially since all three are at, or just below, the pivotal points I’ve been monitoring for several weeks.

The shares of this brokerage company were recently upgraded by Keefe Bruyette & Woods, to ‘Outperform’, and by Barclays to ‘Overweight’.

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.