Before we dive into this morning’s Weekly Review, I wanted to bring to your attention to the schedule for this holiday week. I will be working/trading as normal Monday through Wednesday, and then will be off Thursday through Monday morning, which means we won’t be sending a Daily Watchlist or the Week in Review on Monday, November 27. Have a great Thanksgiving!

Before we dive into this morning’s Weekly Review, I wanted to bring to your attention to the schedule for this holiday week. I will be working/trading as normal Monday through Wednesday, and then will be off Thursday through Monday morning, which means we won’t be sending a Daily Watchlist or the Week in Review on Monday, November 27. Have a great Thanksgiving!

The market continues to improve, with our Cabot Tides turning positive earlier this week. Now, not everything is rowing in the same direction, and among growth stocks, the pickings are relatively concentrated, so for now we’re stepping slowly into stocks and building positions rather than cannonballing into the pool—we added a chunk of money earlier this week, and tonight we’re adding one new half-sized stake in a volatile name we’ve been following for a while but has now changed character on the upside.

Elsewhere in tonight’s issue we review all our stocks, dive into many encouraging pieces of secondary evidence and one group that has a history of trending and is showing outsized institutional accumulation right now.

In the November Issue of Cabot Early Opportunities we lean into the strengthening market with a group of companies doing everything from providing security for new AI applications to paving roads in the Sun Belt to making packaged foods for health-conscious consumers, and more.

As always, there’s something for everybody!

Ahead of the long holiday weekend the market had yet another good week. The S&P 500 gained 1.75%, the Dow rallied 1.5%, and the Nasdaq rose another 1.9%.

This week in an attempt to diversify the portfolio we are adding an energy play.

Last week was a split tape, with the big-cap indexes continuing their thrust higher, though the broad market remains a soft spot. Overall, the intermediate-term trend is effectively neutral, and we think what happens from here will tell the tale, with further strength indicating that a year-end rally is underway, though should the broad market infect the leadership, all bets are off. Right now, we’re more optimistic than not, but are simply looking for more confirmation on the upside—we’ll leave our Market Monitor at a level 5.

We think the most bullish thing the market has going for it is the action of individual stocks, a good number of which are beginning to percolate. Our Top Pick definitely quacks like a liquid leading name.

The market keeps improving but is not necessarily back to 2021 or even June and July 2023 levels just yet, as many individual stocks are stuck in neutral. Fortunately, that’s not the case in the Stock of the Week portfolio, as eight of our holdings are hitting either 52-week or all-time highs! Today, we try and strike while the iron is hot – or at least warming – by adding a familiar growth stock that was a market darling during Covid, had a very rough 2022, but has now gotten the attention of Mike Cintolo in Cabot Top Ten Trader after a major gap up at the end of October.

Details inside.

We currently have two positions due to expire in December. My hope is to add at least one more December expiring position this week as our deltas are leaning far too negative for my liking, at least at the moment.

There isn’t much to discuss at the moment so I’m going to keep it short this week. We have several positions to due to expire each of the next three weeks. If all goes as planned, we should have the ability to lock in some really nice premium which should push our returns to new highs.

I expect to see a busy week this week with several key positions on our watch list due to announce earnings.

I expect to start the week with a trade in Home Depot (HD) which is due to announce prior to the opening bell tomorrow. The other announcement I’ll be focusing on is Walmart (WMT) which is due to announce prior to the opening bell on Thursday. I fully anticipate making trades around both announcements, as long as Mr. Market cooperates, so stay tuned for several trade alerts this week.

The latest market surge has left the All-Weather portfolio up a respectable 6.5%, with our poor man’s covered call in the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) continuing to do the heavy lifting, up 25.2%. The S&P 500 is up 5% over the same time frame.

Our SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) position has been resurgent of late. After being down roughly 20%, our poor man’s covered call position in GLD now sits 8% higher.

How quickly the market can change directions as one week we are on the verge of a steep decline, and the next week the indexes explode higher. This last week fell into the big winner camp as the S&P 500 gained 5.35%, the Dow rallied 5.07% and the Nasdaq added 6.61%.

With the arrival of earnings season and perhaps some indications that the 10-year US Treasury yield will peak at around 5%, the broad stock market appears to have found at least momentary stability. Whether this is just another “eye of the storm,” or a true end to the bear market, is unknown and unknowable.

This week was another relatively slow one. However, we did have two companies report earnings.

Due to changing business conditions, Cabot has decided to end the SX Crypto Advisor publication. I want to personally thank everyone who subscribed and tuned in to our webinars. It has been a pleasure to provide you with this research content, I hope you enjoyed reading despite the tough year in the markets.

You will receive further information from the company regarding this closure process.

Cabot Options Institute Earnings Trader shows you how to use options to profit during the most profitable period in the market: earnings season. Most people are unaware, but you can reliably collect a month’s worth of gains in a matter of days… and sometimes hours.

This week, Dow (DOW) and Nokia (NOK) reported earnings. The deluge for our companies starts next week with twelve companies reporting.

Next week, we will publish the November edition of the Cabot Turnaround Letter on Wednesday and our proprietary Catalyst Report on Friday.

Cabot Options Institute Income Trader is focused exclusively on the creating consistent income through a variety of options selling strategies. Whether you have questions about selling puts, covered strangles, jade lizards or our income wheel approach, Andy is more than happy to help you steepen your learning curve in this live event.

Small caps are still trading at a very steep discount that implies very attractive returns in the coming year. The Wall Street Journal had a so-so piece on this earlier in the week.

The brief earnings rally is already petering as positive surprises from some high-profile companies are being offset by others. The hope of a corporate earnings soft landing is getting some cold water thrown on it.

Better-than-expected big bank earnings along with other earnings beats from notable companies like Netflix (NFLX), United Airlines Holdings (UAL) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) are being smothered by overall results. So far, overall results are below average for the quarter.

Explorer stocks were all up this week though it is not clear we are out of the woods yet. Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile S.A. (SQM) jumped from 83 to 90, Infineon Technologies (IFNNY) shares had double-digit gains, and Kraken (KRKNF) was up 8% yesterday and almost 20% over the last two weeks as smaller stocks are in favor.

Cabot Options Institute Quant Trader is focused exclusively on creating consistent returns using high-probability options strategies including bear call spreads, bull put spreads, iron condors and more. Whether you have questions about the strategies, or even about setting up your account, or how to make your own trades, Andy will answer all of your questions

So far, earnings season is showing that investor expectations have become overly negative. Results from banks indicate that consumer activity remains healthy even as domestic economic growth stalls.

The experience for base and precious metals investors since March, when most metals peaked, has been something akin to Chinese water torture. To be sure, there have been periodic opportunities in select metals (and related industries) along the way. But the main trajectory for the sector has been steadily lower most of this year.

JPM looks to open the day well within our range of 103 to 120. As a result, I want to take the trade off for a profit. I will discuss the trade further in tomorrow’s subscriber-exclusive webinar.

After closing out our SPY bear call spread (albeit prematurely) for a decent profit yesterday, I want to continue to take advantage of the inflated volatility that resides in the S&P 500 by adding another iron condor to the portfolio.

I’ve decided to go ahead and buy back our short calls in IEF and VTI for the opportunity to sell more premium in August. Both short calls in IEF and VTI have little to no premium left, so now is as good a time as ever to sell more premium in both underlying ETFs.

We are moving shares of Credit Suisse (CS) from Buy to Sell.

Alliance Resource Partners (ARLP) is now up 12% from our initial entry point as of Wednesday, which means it’s time to take some profit off the table per the rules of our trading discipline.

For many months, I’ve been telling you what a bargain the leading cannabis stocks have become, and now it appears that increasing numbers of investors have come to the same conclusion, as selected stocks have lifted off their bottoms, with some even climbing above their 25-day moving averages.

I want to close out our SPY July 29, 2022, 405/410 bear call spread today for $0.35. By closing out the trade we can lock in 8.70%.

Today, I’m going to issue my first alert, but it’s going to be a bit of a dress rehearsal. I’m going to follow the trade per usual with an opening and closing alert, but I want to go through the process the first time, step by step, so everyone has an understanding of what to expect going forward.

Our PFE puts closed worthless last Friday. As a result, we were able to lock in a 1.30% return. Certainly not a home run, but definitely the beginning of piling up premium in the market stalwart.

So, in today’s trade alert, I want to sell more puts in PFE with the intent of eventually wheeling into the position.

As I’ve been stating over the past few weeks, gold and energy look like an interesting short-term setup given the extreme oversold levels.

Today, given the extreme oversold readings, I’m going to open a position in the SPDR Gold ETF (GLD), more specifically a bull put spread.

I’ve decided to go ahead and buy back our short calls in DBC and GLD for the opportunity to sell more premium in August. Both short calls in DBC and GLD have little to no premium left, so now is as good a time as ever to sell more premium in both underlying ETFs.

In today’s trade alert, like my last one, I want to start out by selling cash-secured puts with the intent of eventually wheeling into the position.
This will make our fifth position in the Income Wheel Portfolio. I’m still looking for a few good candidates for a Jade Lizard or two, but I remain cautious given the current market environment. Moreover, I continue to try to and create a good mix of stocks with different levels of implied volatility.

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.