The chop factor remains in force in the market, with yet another round of rotation this week out of growth and into the broad market. Even so, we see more good than bad out there, with an increasing number of growth stocks having popped out of multi-month ranges and recent dips mostly looking manageable. We added another new name last week, and we could add more depending on how this rotation plays out, but tonight we’ll stand pat with our stocks and 30% in cash.

In tonight’s issue, we write about one sector that’s showing some signs of perking up, some encouraging sentiment readings and go over all of our stocks and many others we’re keeping a close eye on.

As summer winds down, the markets are not showing any signs of weakness. The Dow Jones Industrial Average passed 35,000 and is treading pretty close to that number, minus a few pullbacks. The outlook for the markets continues bullish, with a bit of belt-tightening, as our barometer depicts.

As long as the economy continues its strengthening, so should the markets. According to FactSet, 89% of the S&P 500 companies have reported second quarter earnings so far, and 88.8% have surpassed their forecasts! In addition to great earnings reports, the employment picture brightened last week, as we saw the unemployment rate drop from 5.7 to 5.4. That’s great news!



In this month’s issue, we begin with our Spotlight Stock, a cell tower provider, who is enjoying the 4G expansion around the world, and is poised to continue its leadership as 5G rolls out. In my Feature article, I further explore the growth of both of those technologies.



Our Growth ideas this month include a flooring retailer, a SPAC for car parts, an automobile dealer, and a pet products manufacturer. More and more companies are paying dividends, and you’ll see a wide variety of them in our Growth & Income section, including an eyecare company, the biggest retailer in the world, a mattress manufacturer, an infrastructure company, a consumer products maker, and a lithium miner.



We offer three Value stocks from the auto dealer, construction, and shoe retailing businesses. As Finance, Healthcare, and Tech stocks are producing big gains this year, our contributors are adding to their portfolios with these banks, pharma, and transaction service companies.



A big category for our advisors this month is Resources, Energy & Utilities, where you’ll find an energy exploration company, a silver miner, two utilities, and a resources land ownership business. In Low-Priced Stocks, we offer an amusement park company and a lithium miner.



Lastly, in our Funds & ETFs section, you’ll find ideas from the contra, small cap, international growth, and covered call arenas.



I hope you’ll join me on Thursday, August 11, 2021, at 1:20 pm - 1:50 pm ET, for my Money Show virtual presentation: Failing to Plan = Planning to Fail: How to Jump-Start Your Retirement with a Simple Stock and ETF Strategy.



And, of course, I hope to see you at our Cabot Smarter Investing, Greater Profits Online Conference next week, August 17-19, 2021. As always, please don’t hesitate to email me with your feedback and questions. My address is nancy@cabotwealth.com.

Before we get into this recommendation, I just wanted to highlight our upcoming annual conference.

9th Annual Smarter Investing, Greater Profits Online Conference



It will take place from August 17-19 and you will hear from many experts (including me!) about opportunities in the market.



Today, we are recommending an energy name with strong momentum and downside protection.



Some additional details:



It’s levered to natural gas which has recovered sharply in 2021.

• Strong earnings growth and free cash flow generation.
• Downside protection (no debt and significant cash on its balances sheet).
• Insider ownership (management and board own 25% of shares outstanding) and recent insider buying.

All the details are inside this month’s Issue. Enjoy!

We’re in the middle of the summer market malaise. These markets tend to do whatever they were doing when investors went on vacation and stopped paying attention. The rubber usually hits the road when investors sober up and take a fresh look at things after Labor Day.

Sure, the market is historically cranky in September. Current fears about the Delta variant and inflation could gain more traction. The market could even sell off a bit. But I believe the current fears are overblown. Cyclical stocks and others that have been held back by recent concerns should shine again in the booming economy this fall.



In this issue, I highlight a stock with a strongly growing business that should thrive over the next several quarters as well as on the other side of the pandemic recovery. Meanwhile, it sells at a cheap valuation while the market is distracted by other things.

The bulls continued their winning ways last week, but the advance wasn’t without some jostling. Late in the week several leading growth stocks pulled back, but those declines weren’t enough to keep the bulls from another weekly victory.

The S&P 500 gained 0.93%, the Dow advanced 0.78% and the Nasdaq rose 1.11%.



To put this market run into perspective, the current rally has lasted 189 days, basically nine months, without a 5% pullback. Additionally, there have been 43 days of a recorded new high.



So, my stance hasn’t changed too much. I continue to take a cautious but optimistic approach.

Current Market Outlook


We continue to see more good than bad in the market as an increasing number of growth stocks move into new high ground, many other growth stocks set up nicely and even some cyclical names are getting into the act, rounding out nice launching pads. Still, there’s no question the chop factor is still real, as the vast majority of names that pop higher generally attract sellers for at least a couple of days, with more than a few sinking right back to where they started. Overall, we are encouraged by the rising level of leadership, so we’re nudging our Market Monitor up to a level 7, but the game plan remains generally the same—we favor starting small and/or buying on dips or consolidations, while focusing on stocks showing outsized accumulation.

This week’s list is another chock-full of recent earnings winners and other names showing excellent action. Our Top Pick is Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY), which has lifted off nicely and has a great story.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Albemarle Corporation (ALB)	231	218-227	195-199
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY)	200	195-202	174-177
Datadog (DDOG)	130	124-128	110-112
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS)	400	394-404	375-380
Lending Club (LC)	26	25-27	21-22
Lightspeed POS Inc. (LSPD)	93	90-93.5	81-83
ON Semiconductor (ON)	45	44-46	40-41
Paycom Software (PAYC)	469	448-462	405-414
Under Armour, Inc. (UAA)	25	24-25	21.5-22
ZoomInfo (ZI)	61	59-62	52.5-54.5

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 in the semiconductor industry, which as we all know, is enjoying great demand in a supply-constrained world.



As for the current portfolio, most of our stocks look good, but Progyny (PGNY) is a sell, simply because it is our biggest loser.



Details inside.



Lastly, I hope you’ll join me for the 9th Annual Smarter Investing, Greater Profits Online Conference, August 17-19. We have an incredible line-up of experts ready to share their best picks.

Explorer stocks had an unusually quiet week as the Delta variant and weaker-than-expected job growth gave markets something to worry about. Meanwhile, the economy moves ahead. In particular, the pace of U.S. electric vehicle sales doubled in the first half of 2021 as we try to catch up to other parts of the world. Today’s recommendation is an indirect but powerful way to play this accelerating trend.

Please join me for the 9th Annual Smarter Investing, Greater Profits Online Conference, August 17-19. We have an incredible line-up of experts ready to share their best picks.

Among all the small-cap stocks I’ve studied in recent weeks one keeps jumping out at me. In fact, I’ve been eying it since March. It’s time to act.

This stock is different in virtually every respect from our typical stock. It’s not high tech and growth isn’t off the charts. That’s because it’s a value stock.



I think once you read my report you’ll “get it.” And in a year or so I believe this stock will be trading 50% to 100% higher than it is now, meaning it could offer the same upside potential as growthier names.



Enjoy!

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.

Waste removal is not glamorous, but it is profitable.

The market has gotten a little jumpy given the potential impacts of a broader coronavirus outbreak and the trickle of earnings-related announcements, which have the grounding effect of telling us what’s actually going on inside companies these days.

Two portfolio stocks report earnings beats.

This new ETF provides a juicy dividend yield 4.09%, of paid quarterly and it adds to returns by employing a covered call strategy.

Seven analysts have just increased their EPS analysts for this mining stock.

It’s still a bull market, but our Cabot Tides are close to the fence and the odds are that the recent burst in selling pressures probably won’t go away overnight.

To follow up on last Thursday’s issue that highlighted the worsening China virus, I believe it is appropriate for us to hedge China risk and volatility with an inverse China exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Three quarters of earning’s beats and solid revenue growth are pushing this consulting stock higher.

Crista has updates on several portfolio stocks.

The fund pays a current annual dividend yield of 9.83%, paid monthly.

Our second recommendation is a sale of a company that proved to be a disappointment.

Let’s talk about a specific category of stocks that I like to buy after they fall from grace. These are famous stocks that don’t fall very often, but when they do, I like to snap them up because they’re almost always destined to rebound. And it just hit me: these are MOVIE STAR 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 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.