The market remains in very good shape, continuing the super-powerful rally off the March lows that continues to bring with it some rare signs of momentum. To be fair, there have been a couple of rain clouds that have come into view—the broad market, for instance, has mostly stalled out since mid-April, and many AI stocks are in nosebleed territory, both of which ups the odds of an overall market hiccup or possibly a near-term rotation. Even so, it’s still mostly sunny out there, with the rubber-meets-the-road evidence (trends of the indexes, action of leading stocks) looking great. We’ll leave our Market Monitor at a level 8.

This week’s list features a lot of tech but also a few other recent earnings winners. Our Top Pick is one of a few software names to rebound nicely on earnings. Aim to enter on weakness.

Stocks continue to rise to new heights as the miserable March recedes further in the rearview mirror. With the war in Iran still ongoing, however, oil and gas prices remain elevated, and this week we’ll find out how much that translates to rising inflation, with CPI and PPI data due out Tuesday and Wednesday. In the meantime, let’s keep our foot on the growth pedal, with a twist: Today we go outside U.S. borders for a mid-cap miner that’s taking full advantage of the AI and data center craze. It’s a new stock recommended by Cabot Explorer Chief Analyst Carl Delfeld.

Details inside.

The bulls made it six straight winning weeks, powered by a semiconductor surge that has shown no signs of slowing down. Also helping the mood: the April jobs report blew past expectations Friday, with the economy adding 115,000 jobs against a forecast of just 65,000.

The bulls made it six straight winning weeks, powered by a semiconductor surge that has shown no signs of slowing down. Also helping the mood: the April jobs report blew past expectations Friday, with the economy adding 115,000 jobs against a forecast of just 65,000.

The bulls made it six straight winning weeks, powered by a semiconductor surge that has shown no signs of slowing down. Also helping the mood: the April jobs report blew past expectations Friday, with the economy adding 115,000 jobs against a forecast of just 65,000.

Markets have been resilient driven by earnings, hopes of a Hormuz deal, and a ramping up of share buybacks by big tech this year.

Explorer stocks had a good week. Brookfield Renewable (BEP) shares were up 7.5% this week as attention was riveted on clean energy in the wake of the Middle East conflict.

Small businesses drive a lot of U.S. job growth – yet many can’t get the loans they need from paper-bound, cautious banks.

Today’s featured company aims to change that. It is a digital lending specialist that’s transforming into a full-scale bank. By leveraging over two decades of data, it is capturing market share while maintaining impressively low default rates.

All the details are inside the May issue of Cabot Small-Cap Confidential.

Soaring oil prices ground airline stocks to a halt in March, and most of them have yet to recover as crude oil remains in the triple-digit range. And yet, most airlines are still on track for another year of record sales and passenger numbers. That includes this month’s new addition to the Cabot Value Investor portfolio, which expects double-digit revenue and triple-digit earnings growth this year, and yet the stock trades 37% below its 2017 highs. Shares had momentum before the Iran war. Now they’re trading at a rarely seen discount. That spells opportunity and perfectly fits our growth-at-value-prices mandate.

Details inside.

The bulls had another strong week as the Magnificent Seven reported mostly strong earnings, the Fed held steady (as expected), Q1 GDP came in at a solid 2.0%, and Apple capped the week with a top- and bottom-line earnings beat that sent shares up more than 3% on Friday. The one fly in the ointment? Inflation — the PCE price index surged at a 3.5% annualized rate in Q1, a sharp acceleration driven by elevated energy costs tied to the Iran conflict.

We continue to see and hear about many uncertainties, not the least of which is the continued back-and-forth in the Middle East—but despite that, stocks have continued to handle themselves very well, oftentimes actually advancing despite the supposed fundamental headwinds. Of course, near term, some sort of pothole is possible, and the next two weeks are actually prime time when it comes to earnings season for growth stocks, so we’ll see how it goes. But we’ll bump our Market Monitor to a level 8 given the positive evidence.

This week’s list features a lot of recent earnings winners as well as some good setups. Our Top Pick has solid growth and free cash flow, and the stock just emerged from a huge base after earnings.

Booming earnings vs. a damaging war. That’s the tug-of-war investors are grappling with right now.

In March, the sudden war in Iran sent stock prices tumbling; in April, stocks rebounded with a fury, thanks in part to double-digit earnings growth and hopes of peace. Where the market goes in May will depend on how long the war drags out – and how long the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. In the meantime, though, artificial intelligence is clearly back in favor, so today we add a new AI name courtesy of Cabot Early Opportunities Chief Analyst Tyler Laundon. It’s a name that’s hitting fresh all-time highs as I write this – with potentially much greater upside ahead.

Details inside.

The bulls had another strong week as the Magnificent Seven reported mostly strong earnings, the Fed held steady (as expected), Q1 GDP came in at a solid 2.0%, and Apple capped the week with a top- and bottom-line earnings beat that sent shares up more than 3% on Friday. The one fly in the ointment? Inflation — the PCE price index surged at a 3.5% annualized rate in Q1, a sharp acceleration driven by elevated energy costs tied to the Iran conflict.

All of a sudden, stocks are trading at new all-time highs!

How did it happen? Hopes of an end to the war in Iran, first and foremost, as the ceasefire announcement 10 days ago sparked a rally that’s still going, with the S&P 500 now up 10 of the last 11 trading days, gaining nearly 10% during that time. Prior to Wednesday, that was the best 10-day trading stretch since the market came off the Covid lows in March 2020.

What a turnaround! We may not be out of the woods yet, but investors are moving beyond the Iran war.

Optimism about the end of Middle East hostilities is palpable as the market has already made up all losses from a rough March. The S&P 500 had fallen 7.7% in the month of March at its lows on the 30^th. Since then, the index has rallied 9.7%. As of midday on Tuesday, the S&P is back above where it was when the war began and within less than 1% of the all-time high.

The bad news is that tensions in the Middle East are escalating. The good news is that the market doesn’t seem to care.

Peace talks with Iran collapsed over the weekend. The U.S. has moved into the Strait of Hormuz and is blockading Iran. Iran has vowed attacks on Gulf region oil interests in response. The price per barrel of oil has shot up over $100 again after pulling back last week. As of midday on Monday, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are higher for the day. Go figure.

With all that’s going on in the world today, it’s quite remarkable—at first glance—that stocks have held up against the headwinds as well as they have. But when considering the market still enjoys massive support from the historic high in defense spending and the ongoing AI buildout, it’s actually not that surprising.

This brings us to what I think is a pertinent review of some of the key trends we’ve focused on in the newsletter for 2026.

WHAT TO DO NOW: The market’s rally of the past two days (and the week before that) is encouraging, and some signs (like our Aggression Index) are looking good. That said, most of the evidence out there is still neutral (like our Cabot Tides) or negative (like most everything else). Given our huge cash hoard, we’re adding two half positions tonight—Marvell Tech (MRVL) and Dell Tech (DELL)—and restoring a Buy a Half rating on Corning (GLW). But we’ll still keep around two-thirds of the portfolio in cash and look for further green lights to extend our line in the days ahead.

Markets have shifted back toward a risk-on stance over the past week following news of a two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. This “de-escalation trade” was fueled by short covering and the removal of macro hedges as investors pivoted back toward the domestic growth narrative. As a result, attention has begun to drift away from the unrelenting geopolitical uncertainty that sidelined all but the most risk-tolerant investors in March, and back toward earnings growth and a still-solid U.S. economy.

Wars are never good for the stock market. But ceasefires evidently are, at least in the short term.

That’s why stocks had their best day all year on Wednesday, hours after President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire, raising hopes that the Strait of Hormuz would soon reopen. All three major U.S. market indexes were up more than 2% yesterday, while oil prices tumbled back to the low $90s and the VIX dipped as low as 20, after touching the low 30s last week. Value stocks had a good day too, continuing a pattern of outperformance – they’ve fallen less than 3% since the Iran war began, and are up 5% year to date.

Market activity in the second half of March and early April has been entirely dominated by the escalating conflict with Iran and the uncertainty radiating outward from it. Volatility has spiked, investors have reacted by taking risk off the table, and the odds of bad things – recessions, energy shocks, rate hikes, etc. – have gone up.

Not surprisingly, sudden macro shocks tend to wreak havoc on the stock market in the short term. But they also create opportunities in companies where the underlying catalysts – new products, capacity expansions, commercialization cycles or structural industry shifts, etc. – are still unfolding.

Despite the big shake-up at the top of the Department of Justice, the catalyst of cannabis rescheduling is likely still on track. It may happen fairly soon.

The backdrop here is that cannabis reform slow-walker Pam Bondi is out as attorney general (AG). Near term, she is being replaced by her former underling, Todd Blanche.

Things are looking up. Investors sense an imminent end to this war. We may not be out of the woods yet. Hostilities may continue for a while longer. But there is increasing optimism among investors that the war will end soon.

The S&P 500 pulled back 7.7% in the first 30 days of March. The index has gained back 3.8% in the three trading days since, not including Monday. And that’s from just a whiff of hope for peace in the weeks ahead. With an actual end to the conflict, stocks could gain back all the March losses and more in a short period of time.

Seemingly absent from the myriad discussions involving the Middle East war, soaring fuel prices and accelerating worries over a potential global recession is practically any mention of the turmoil in the private credit market.

This was a major talking point among financial pundits prior to the start of the Iranian affair, but it has since been relegated to the proverbial rubbish bin as mainstream news headlines are now heavily tilted toward all things Middle East.

Stocks rebounded the last couple days on hopes that the Mideast conflict will end soon and stocks for the week largely posted modest gains.

One winner of higher oil prices is China, which, while still the world’s biggest oil importer, supplies more than 70% of all the world’s green hardware such as solar, wind, and batteries. Beijing is installing solar panels at a rate equivalent to one nuclear power station every day. This is a big story.

WHAT TO DO NOW: The market tried to stabilize earlier this week, but today’s action is ugly and is hitting many areas; our Cabot Tides have turned down, joining most growth stock measures. The Model Portfolio is already nearly two-thirds in cash, but today we’ll add to that, cutting loose Axsome Therapeutics (AXSM), which is following through to the downside after its post-earnings dip. That will leave us with a high-60% cash position; we’ll have more details (and possibly more changes) in tonight’s update.

Allient (ALNT) Delivers in Q4

Time to Lighten Up

FTAI Infrastructure (FIP) Reports

Earnings Updates: PRMB, BBIO, PTCT

Shares of Xometry (XMTR) are selling off today for reasons that aren’t clear, since this morning’s Q4 report and forward guidance for 2026 were all good. Here are the details:

Today, a whopping eight Profit Booster positions will expire. Most are “slam-dunk,” full-profit trades, while others will go down to the wire.

The big takeaway, before we dive in, is we are going to let the situation play itself out, and come Monday/Tuesday of next week we will revisit our profits, as well as how we will manage the remaining positions.

Valmont Industries (VMI) Reports

Shares of National Energy Services (NESR) are up nicely today after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 FY25 results early this morning. Revenue jumped 15.9% compared to Q4 FY24 (and +35% versus Q3 FY25) to $398 million (beating by 7.5%), and adjusted EPS rose almost 7% to $0.32 (beating by $0.07). The strong results were driven by high utilization and the beginning of work at the Jafurah frac tender. There were a few one-time costs in the quarter, including restructuring costs and two technology investment write-offs.

Atmus Filtration Tech (ATMU) Reports

Artivion (AORT), our MedTech company that specializes in cardiovascular and aortic repair solutions, reported Q4 FY25 results after the close yesterday. Results came in a hair below expectations. Revenue grew by 11.7% to $129.5 million (missed by $48K) while adjusted EPS improved to $0.17 (missed by a penny) from breakeven in the year-ago quarter.

By following thse guidelines, we’ve always been able to get on board relatively early in each new bull cycle.

A brief guide on using the Cabot Top Ten Trader.

Chief Analyst Roy Ward applies these six yardsticks, or price multiples, to help him find undervalued companies: P/BV, P/CF, P/D, P/E, P/S and PEG ratios.

This is a collection of tips on stock chart reading, something that’s key to Mike Cintolo’s growth stock methodology, but something few individual investors (and even professional investors) understand too well.

Here are five tips to help you manage your Cabot Small-Cap Confidential stocks.

These are some investing questions most frequently asked by Cabot Growth Investor subscribers.

Guidelines to improve your investment results with Cabot Top Ten Trader.

The Cabot Top Ten Trader system evaluates price and relative performance of 8,000 charts each week to select the strongest momentum stocks.

Benjamin Graham is widely acknowledged as the father of modern security analysis and value investing, and his books are considered the bibles for individual investors and professionals.

Today’s new addition to the high yield tier, Pattern Energy Group (PEGI) is a yieldco, a relatively new class of high yield investment.