Despite the worries surrounding the government shutdown the market continued its winning ways last week as the S&P 500 and Dow both rallied 1.1%, and the Nasdaq added 1.3%.

Despite the worries surrounding the government shutdown the market continued its winning ways last week as the S&P 500 and Dow both rallied 1.1%, and the Nasdaq added 1.3%.

Remember fintech? It was one of the biggest buzzwords on Wall Street a couple years ago until AI came in and gobbled up all investors’ attention. But the nascent sector never stopped growing, and now share prices are well below their apex as investors have largely ignored the sector the last couple years. In fact, this month’s new fintech addition to the Cabot Value Investor portfolio has almost never been cheaper since coming public in 2020. And yet, the company is still expanding both sales and earnings by more than 25% annually.

It’s a classic growth-at-value-prices story. And we think it has 45% upside in the short-to-intermediate term. Details inside.

The market remains mostly in the same position it has been, with the big-cap indexes trending nicely higher and, based on historical studies, the outlook for the indexes very bullish looking out 3 to 12 months. That said, the broad market is borderline iffy (our Two-Second Indicator is negative) and the chop factor is still with us for growth stocks, so we’re still not cannon-balling into the pool ... though we do see many setups (as so many stocks have marked time for the past 1 to 3 months) out there. Tonight we’re adding another new half-sized position but are still holding about one-third in cash as the next couple of weeks will be telling.

Today we’re wading into the sports betting market, which is evolving into a duopoly where two players hold most of the data that provides a vast network of sportsbooks access to the world’s biggest sporting events.

There is, however, more to the story than just placing a wager on your favorite team.

The October Issue of Cabot Small-Cap Confidential explains it all, and which of these global tech companies we’re teaming up with.

The story of last week was under-the-surface weakness in growth stocks, while money rotated into “everything else.” And by week’s end the S&P 500 had lost 0.3%, the Dow fell 0.1%, and the Nasdaq declined by 0.7%.

The market is still in fine overall shape, but under the hood, it’s becoming more and more of a mixed situation. To be clear, there remains a lot more good than bad when examining the evidence, but for the here and now, we advise simply taking things on a stock-by-stock basis—holding your strong performers (albeit also raising stops and potentially booking a partial profit here or there), while cutting bait with those that lag or crack support and keeping some powder dry. We’ll again leave our Market Monitor at a level 7—we’ve had good success finding winners but don’t advise flooring the accelerator at this point.

This week’s list is growth-ier despite some potholes seen last week, which is a plus. For our Top Pick, we’re going with a blue chip in the AI theme, with its recent post-earnings pullback setting up an opportunity.

Stocks finally took on some water last week, though the damage was minimal. Under the surface, there are a few more cracks, with the number of stocks hitting 52-week lows on the rise. Still, there’s no cause for concern yet. Just in case there is a more extended pullback in the offing, however, today we add a “boring” insurance play, but one that pays a high dividend and whose share price has been on steady uptick for the last couple months. It’s a recommendation from Tom Hutchinson to his Cabot Dividend Investor readers.

Details inside.

The story of last week was under-the-surface weakness in growth stocks, while money rotated into “everything else.” And by week’s end the S&P 500 had lost 0.3%, the Dow fell 0.1%, and the Nasdaq declined by 0.7%.

The story of last week was under-the-surface weakness in growth stocks, while money rotated into “everything else.” And by week’s end the S&P 500 had lost 0.3%, the Dow fell 0.1%, and the Nasdaq declined by 0.7%.

To begin, I would like to highlight that I have decided to omit the brief company review section that followed our weekly stock updates. This section caused some confusion and the information about each company is widely available. Likewise, I’m ending the Explorer watch list. If you own the stocks on the list right now, I see no reason to sell them.

Moving on to the market, the debates regarding the market’s direction seem endless.

While investor-friendly cannabis reform marches ahead at the state level, it’s still a “wait and see” game in Washington, D.C.

Rescheduling by the Trump administration remains the big potential near-term federal catalyst. If it happens, it will be a “sell the news” event for at least part of your cannabis exposure over the subsequent two or three trading days, for these reasons:

With the current earnings season more than halfway complete for S&P 500 companies, a clearer picture of the overall corporate health backdrop is beginning to emerge.

WHAT TO DO NOW: Remain bullish, but continue to keep some of your powder dry. The market remains in a solid uptrend, but more indexes and stocks have been stalling out. To be fair, we are seeing some growth names finally kick into gear, but we still think it’s best to ease off the accelerator a bit as we see how earnings season goes. In the Model Portfolio, we sold Uber (UBER) and bought a half-sized stake in Oracle (ORCL) on a special bulletin Tuesday; tonight we’ll make one small move, adding another 3% position to Rubrik (RBRK), which appears to be emerging from its slumber. We’ll still hold around 30% cash after these moves.

The big macro news this week is that the U.S. economy is doing well and there’s no really clear reason for the Fed to cut interest rates. Trade deals continue to be announced, and the U.S. should be bringing in a good deal more money due to tariffs than it has in the recent past.

Real GDP was just announced to have risen 3%, thanks to capex on hardware and software to build out data centers. Results from Microsoft (MSFT) and Meta (META) confirmed this trend.

A surprisingly productive July comes to a close with the market near all-time highs and volatility at a relative low. I’ve written in recent weeks about the reasons that could change in August and September – the highest stock valuations since the February high, lingering tariff uncertainty and its potential impact on a heretofore resilient economy, frothy warning signs like new meme stocks and soaring bitcoin prices, and the usual selling that occurs right after Labor Day. But for now, stocks are doing just fine, and that includes value stocks, which have risen more than 6% year to date.

The market yawned off great news over the weekend but managed to make a new high nonetheless.

Investors don’t seem to care about tariffs anymore, and the market continues to forge slowly higher regardless of the news. Tariff concern is so last April.

It’s another new high! The market continues to forge slowly higher.

There was positive tariff news over the weekend. President Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen agreed to the framework of a trade deal that includes a 15% tariff on European imports and an agreement by the EU to buy $750 billion worth of U.S. energy over three years. Although the deal so far is considered highly advantageous to the U.S., it’s only a broad outline with many details to be worked out.

The proposed merger between Union Pacific (UNP) and Norfolk Southern (NSC) throws into sharp relief an accelerating—some would say disturbing—trend of mega-consolidation across a number of key industries.

The S&P 500 closed at a fresh record high yesterday, while the S&P 600 SmallCap Index closed at its highest level since February 21.

While there is plenty for the worriers to worry about in the short term – next Wednesday’s Fed meeting, next Thursday’s PCE price index (the Fed’s preferred inflation data), tariffs and Liberation Day 2.0 next Friday – the market seems to be saying, “Don’t sweat it, this will all work out.”

This was a good week for Explorer stocks with Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM) up 6.2%, Alibaba (BABA) up 5.9%, Banco Santander (SAN) shares rising 6.2%, and BYD (BYDDY) shares surging 8.1% this week.

It was a painful process with America’s most valuable ally, but a trade/investment deal was finally reached with Japan, which buoyed markets. Frameworks for deals with the Philippines and Indonesia were also agreed to, sending the S&P 500 to a new high. The market seems mostly concerned with China. The reason is that annual S&P 500 revenue from China is $1.2 trillion, roughly four times the U.S. trade deficit with China.

GameStop (GME) became a household name to investors long after it was a household name to young gamers who liked to play Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto and EA Sports video games. In January 2021, the struggling and widely shorted stock experienced an almost unprecedented resurgence thanks to a Reddit message board-fueled short squeeze orchestrated by someone named Keith Gill, under his more public alias Roaring Kitty.

The renewed tariff uncertainty is affecting the market. Stocks are going up slower now.

It looks like a market that wants to go higher. The tariff stuff is just holding it back for now, but just barely. The S&P 500 still made a new high on Monday. And earnings season is starting to heat up. Later this week and next week, several big tech companies report. Good news could ignite a market rally despite anything going on in the world besides artificial intelligence.

Just when it looked like happy days were here again, volatility has reared its ugly head.

Granted, this week’s volatility spike was muted by historical standards, but relative to the ultra-low volatility of the last few weeks, it was enough to give pause for the bulls.

The broad market indices are up nicely today on news of significant de-escalation of U.S.-China trade tensions following weekend talks in Switzerland.

Earnings Roundup

Natural Grocers (NGVC) should have a decent day (+20% in early hours trading) after Q2 earnings beat expectations. Revenue grew 9.0% to $335.8 million (a $6.1 million beat) while GAAP EPS of $0.56 grew by 60%. Daily average comparable store sales grew by 8.9%. This was a very strong quarter.

Shares of Artivion (AORT) are up over 12% today after the company beat expectations in the first quarter. Revenue grew 1.6% (Q1 of last year was a monster quarter so a tough comparison) to $99 million versus expectations of $94.8 million while adjusted EPS of $0.06 beat expectations by $0.02.

MSFT, FRSH, SFM Earnings Roundup

Enovix (ENVX) reported Q1 results yesterday after the close that met revenue expectations with $5.1 million. Operating expenses rose in the quarter and will continue to do so into Q2 to support the ramp up to mass production and to prepare for higher production capacity at the newly acquired South Korean battery manufacturing plant.

GE Vernova (GEV) and Sportradar (SRAD) Updates

This has been a difficult month with high levels of uncertainty.

The concurrent declines in the U.S. dollar and S&P 500 are part of a trend that has swept markets since the broad and steep tariffs were announced.

Sell Teladoc Health (TDOC)

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.

While there have been some crazy moves in the market this week, it’s somewhat encouraging that, as of 12:00 PM ET, the broad market isn’t off that much compared to Friday’s close.

It’s been encouraging to see the market stabilize over the last two days (though yesterday was a crazy session).

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.