Whew! I’m glad to see the back of October, aren’t you? Last month lived up to its usual market volatility, with several big down days on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. However, things are looking up, and with this morning’s futures, it looks like investors appreciate the coming gridlock in Congress, following yesterday’s mid-term elections.

The market advanced nicely today, continuing the bounce it’s enjoyed during the past week and a half. It’s encouraging action, and we’re not opposed to doing a little buying here or there given our large (76%) cash position.

That said, our trend-following indicators are still negative, telling us that, despite the nice rally, we need to see continued positive action before starting a major new buying spree. Right now, we’re mostly focused on fine-tuning our watch list, which we’re not having trouble doing given the many strong earnings gaps seen recently.

In tonight’s issue, we talk a bit about how markets usually bottom after a big decline, something that’s good to keep in the back of your mind. And we spend a lot of space discussing potential leaders of the next advance.

The rally continues, but it is definitely losing steam; odds are that the market will see more downside action soon, so if you’re heavily invested, you should think about lightening up.

At the same time, there are pockets of strength developing, so if you’re perhaps underinvested, several of the portfolio stocks deserve a hard look.

The stock market continues to work its way through the second of two 10% corrections in 2018, as measured by performance of the S&P 500 index. On the bright side, the worst appears to be over for the majority of stocks that I follow. Exceptions will include stocks that are reaching annual lows. Unfortunately, those stocks will likely fall further until tax loss selling subsides.

I continue to expect many stocks to remain low through year end, possibly followed by quite a bull run in January.

Current Market Outlook


After a punishing month, last week’s three-day bounce qualifies as a decent first step for the market and many individual stocks and sectors—most now have some breathing room above last week’s low points, and ideally, we’ll begin to see more potential leaders strut their stuff in the weeks ahead as the situation stabilizes. But a good first step is the best description we can give the bounce at this point given that the intermediate-term trends of just about everything (indexes, sectors, stocks) remain pointed down, and the odds favor plenty of volatility (at the very least) going forward. It’s not 2008 out there, but trends are negative, so until the bulls truly retake control, defense is the name of the game. We’re leaving our Market Monitor at a level 3.

The good news is that this week’s list has many recent earnings winners that could do well once a new uptrend gets underway. Our Top Pick is Exact Sciences (EXAS), a name we’re high on and that remains perched near its highs after another excellent quarterly report.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Bilibili (BILI)	28.71	13.3-14.5	11-12
Cooper Tire (CTB)	31.50	30.5-32.5	27.5-29
Deckers Outdoor Corp. (DECK)	141.68	126-131	114-117
Exact Sciences (EXAS)	116.91	70-74	63-65.6
HealthEquity, Inc. (HQY)	70.70	90-94	81-83.5
Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP)	25.35	25-26	22.5-23.5
Omnicell (OMCL)	81.03	66-69	61.5-62.5
Starbucks (SBUX)	64.49	62-64	56-57.5
Under Armour, Inc. (UAA)	26.82	22-23.5	20-20.9
VeriSign (VRSN)	190.71	157-162	145-149

October proved to be a challenging month for stocks, but one good thing came out of it—it helped me identify stocks that investors really want to own!

The recent bounce in emerging market stocks has raised hopes that the end might be near for the powerful correction that has hit EM stocks so hard. That may be the case, although the only sure way to tell is to watch the market’s action tomorrow and through the rest of earnings season and beyond. We’re certainly not going to do any predicting, just telling you what to do based on the action we see. The next few weeks will see quarterly reports from four of our stocks, and will also give us a sense of what the future leadership among emerging-market stocks will look like. In today’s issue, we have a South African company that’s becoming a global player in a software niche.

October has been a challenging month for many investors, but dividend stocks and income investments have been a rare safe haven. After a few sells last week, our portfolio is looking ready for whatever November throws at us. So far, investors are optimistic about turning the calendar page: the market managed to rally yesterday and then opened higher today.
However, we’re not out of the woods yet, and as always, I recommend sticking with what’s working. That’s why today I’m adding another conservative consumer staples stock to the Safe Income tier, which I expect to provide us with a secure income stream for a long time.
Read the whole issue for the story, plus earnings updates on many of our holdings, and a look into why REITs have been doing so well recently.

The market has gone sideways since May. It seems to be deciding what to do.

It’s encouraging that the resumption of hostilities with Iran has not sent the market lower. It’s also positive that oil prices aren’t rising back to the $100 level earlier in the war, although prices have risen. It’s also another earnings season and analysts expect a big one.

With war being one of the most dominant themes of the last four years, it stands to reason that investors should position their portfolios to account for this conspicuous (and unwelcome) trend.

And lest one be tempted to think that the warfare theme will diminish anytime soon, last week’s article by NPR deflates that illusion: It revealed that global military conflicts are at their highest level since WWII.

Price targets are standard practice on Wall Street. But sometimes, they can act as an artificial ceiling.

For example, say Truist sets a price target on an up-and-coming growth stock that’s 25% higher than its current share price. For a growth stock, a 25% return isn’t much. But then again, the stock could be a total flop, which is the natural boom-or-bust tradeoff growth investors must endure in trading off increased risk for massive upside. So, a price target on a growth stock seems almost like an unnecessary cap on a stock that has the potential to go through the roof.

WHAT TO DO NOW: Continue to trim your sails. In the Model Portfolio, we’ve been getting closer and closer to shore as growth funds and indexes are under pressure and AI stocks cascade lower. Tonight we’re going to further trim Marvell (MRVL) given its ugly action, selling a third of what we have left. That will leave the portfolio with a big 58% cash position. We could put some of that to work if growth names find support, but we want to see key growth measures firm up before buying.

After a brief pause last week, small caps are once again leading the pack.

Through Wednesday’s close, the S&P 600 Small Cap Index is up roughly 21% year to date, compared to gains of about 15% for the S&P 400 MidCap Index, 17% for the Nasdaq and 11% for the S&P 500.

Its earnings season again! That’s a good thing. Earnings just might save the day in an otherwise confusing and uncertain market.

The market is causing whiplash. The Iran peace deal changed things. Stocks held back by high oil prices, and the resulting higher inflation and interest rates, reignited as oil prices came back down after the peace deal. But hostilities with Iran have resumed.

The peace deal may be on hold again. But stocks are hanging in there so far.

The ceasefire with Iran is over and hostilities have resumed. That sounds like a bigger bummer than it’s been in the market so far. Falling oil prices enabled previously beleaguered stocks to soar higher again as the prognosis for inflation and interest rates simultaneously improved. But that rally is over if oil prices spike higher again.

It’s no surprise that summer often brings lower market volatility levels as Wall Street heads to the Hamptons and participation rates diminish.

Indeed, what we’re seeing right now has all the classic symptoms of a low-participation environment, with investor sentiment being remarkably muted. This can be seen across a number of sentiment indicators for several different markets, most of which are flashing decisively “neutral” signals.

The divide between value and growth stocks is widening, as the Nasdaq is now more than 5% off its highs after peaking in early June while the Vanguard Value Index ETF (VTV) is hovering near its late-June apex and is up 3% in the last month.

That can flip in an instant, of course, as we saw in April and May. But the bottom line is that value stocks have risen 15% year to date, compared to an 11% gain in the Nasdaq and a 9.5% boost in the S&P 500.

After a very strong run from the March lows, the market appears to be going through an uncomfortable but healthy rotation. Many of the biggest winners from the AI and semiconductor trade have come under pressure, while value stocks, equal-weight indexes and other areas that had lagged earlier in the year have held up much better.

Markets are facing more inflation as the Iran mess gets messier. Concerns over high AI capital spending are a cloud over a resilient market. On the bright side for our portfolio, however, International Business Machines (IBM) shares were up 7.4% this week following last week’s 8.9% gain. Sea Limited (SE) shares leapt 9.6% this week and are up about 20% over the past month. MercadoLibre (MELI) shares are up 11.6% over the last two weeks.

I remain bullish on stocks, but I am turning more cautious, winding down leverage, and letting some cash build up in my non-marginable accounts.

The reason is that spooky season lies just around the corner. September and October are typically the weakest months of the year. We also often see weakness in July and August, perhaps as investors get nervous about those looming difficult months.

This pharmaceutical company is forecast to continue growing at double-digit rates over the next five years.

This ETF focuses on medium-sized growth companies in the cyber security space—a fast-growing arena.

The stronger global economies are allowing central banks to abandon economic stimulus efforts and attempt to return to more normal interest rates. The turnaround overseas has caused the U.S. dollar to fall, which will likely continue during the next couple of years.

We have a few portfolio stocks that warrant attention this week, amid an ongoing sector rotation. Money is flowing out of overvalued tech stocks into quite a variety of undervalued industries.

Still growing at double-digit rates, this tech giant’s earnings forecasts for this year were increased by two analysts.

Wall Street expects this pharma company to grow by double-digits over the next five years. The shares recently crossed over their 50-day moving average, a bullish indicator.

This medical device maker just received FDA approval for its INSPIRIS RESILIA aortic valve, the first in a new class of resilient heart valves.

This biotech stock is rated ‘Buy’ by Zacks, based on excellent cash flow and momentum.

Although still in its turnaround phase, this footwear maker beat analysts’ earnings estimates by eight cents last quarter.

Earnings recently drove this Top Pick’s price down, so we are selling the stock and taking our profits.

Growth stocks were pummeled today, reversing yesterday’s rebound and driving the Nasdaq to its 50-day line. At day’s end, the Dow lost 168 points and the Nasdaq closed down 90 points.

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.