Gold hit $4,000 an ounce and the signal this is sending is not hard to grasp.

Investors are enjoying stock gains but are hedging downside currency and stock price risk as well as a hedge on growing government debt and geopolitical risk. Gold seems the most popular safe haven as it is viewed as a safe harbor asset in a way that the greenback used to be viewed. Gold’s rally began almost three years ago, fueled by central banks and Chinese investors leery of both its stock and property markets.

After spending most of the summer making a series of new highs, it’s been more of the same so far this fall.

The drawback is that the market is high-priced. Technology stocks, driven by the AI catalyst, have driven stocks higher. But certain sectors have not had a great year. Despite the impressive performance of the overall market over the last few years, there are still bargains to be found.

The real estate sector struggled during inflation and rising interest rates and has been the worst-performing sector over the last five years. Healthcare has floundered all year because of uncertainty regarding tariffs and new pricing policies from Washington. It has been the second-worst-performing market sector over the last year.

But things are turning around in both beleaguered sectors. The Fed started cutting the fed funds rate again in September and two more cuts are expected this year. The long-anticipated issues in the healthcare industry have revealed themselves. And it doesn’t seem nearly as bad as feared. As a result, healthcare stocks had the strongest weekly rally in more than 20 years.

In this issue, I highlight a REIT that specializes in healthcare properties. It has a stellar track record of performance and has among the fastest earnings growth among REITs. It also pays a strong dividend yield and will likely benefit in the months ahead from a rally in either sector.

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%.

The market’s uptrend continues, but as has been the case for many weeks, it’s somewhat tricky out there, with news-driven moves, selling on strength, the occasional bout of rotation and potholes—all while large swaths of the market are doing a lot more chopping than trending. That’s not “bad,” per se, but it remains a selective environment: We continue to take things on a stock-by-stock basis, focusing on strong names that are ideally fresher in their uptrends, while also being active with portfolio management. We’ll again leave our Market Monitor at a level 7.

This week’s list again has a heavy growth component, and not all are in the AI realm, which we find encouraging. Our Top Pick is a blue chip e-commerce name that, after a couple of false starts, looks like it’s ready to move.

Stocks keep reaching new heights, as last week’s concerns about the market starting to show cracks under the surface seem to have been overblown, at least in the near term. Third-quarter earnings season gets underway next week, and expectations are high again, with economists expecting 8% growth. Companies may have to exceed those lofty expectations to keep this rally going. For now, though, the market is rolling.

To account for some possible bumpiness ahead, however, today I’m adding a big-name value stock to our portfolio. It’s one that I recommended to my Cabot Value Investor audience last month, and it’s already off to a fast start. It’s a company that thrives when the global economy is sound – which it is, despite myriad fears to the contrary.

Details inside.

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.

The market is enduring the post-summer market well, so far. The expected Fed rate cut is pushing stocks higher.

There are few things Wall Street loves more than rate cuts. And there is one almost surely on the way. Traders are assigning better than 90% probability to a cut. But speculation is growing as an increasing number of analysts expect a 0.50% cut, instead of the usual 0.25%.

It has been called “Beijing’s missile fashion week” by news outlets, and it commanded a fair share of this week’s headlines. It’s also a reminder to investors why the defense sector is still in a leadership position from a relative strength standpoint, driven by ongoing military conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Yesterday, Alphabet (GOOG) shares were up 8% after it avoided harsh antitrust penalties keeping its browser and partnership with Apple (APPL). Alibaba (BABA) shares were up 9.9% this week as quarterly cloud growth was up 26% year-over-year and profits exceeded expectations.

Uncertainty and a weak dollar are two reasons gold and silver are doing so well. The pressure on the Federal Reserve, political volatility, and voracious central bank buying from China and other countries are also factors.

The post-Labor Day market is here. And it’s starting off ugly.

The sobered-up, post-summer investor is notoriously cranky. That’s why September is historically the worst month. Combine that fact with a market that is within a whisker of the high with plenty of uncertainty swirling around, and you have a recipe for trouble.

The day of reckoning has arrived. The summer is over. It’s after Labor Day. What will sobered-up investors see when they really start paying attention again?

The post-summer investor can be cranky. That’s why September is historically the worst-performing month in the market. Combine that fact with a market that is within a whisker of the high with plenty of uncertainty swirling around, and you have a recipe for potential turbulence.

WHAT TO DO NOW: The market remains in good shape as we roll into the long weekend, and we’re happy to see some growth stocks rebound in recent days, with today being a solid performance. That’s not a signal to cannonball into the pool, but with a huge cash position, we’re doing some buying tonight, buying another 3% position in GE Vernova (GEV) and starting a half-sized stake in MP Materials (MP). We’re close to adding some other names, too, but we’ll start with these moves and go from there. Our cash position will be around 49%.

Small caps shot higher last Friday after Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated his willingness to consider a September rate cut.

On Friday, the S&P 600 SmallCap Index jumped by 3.8%, blasting through the 1,400 level that has served as intermittent overhead resistance in July and August. The index also broke through the 1,424 level, which the index jumped to following the weak jobs report a couple weeks ago.

It’s been a rough few years for the housing sector.

Ever since the Fed raised interest rates to multi-decade highs in 2022/2023, both housing starts and existing home sales have fallen off a cliff in the U.S. Housing starts peaked at 1.82 million in April 2022; they dipped as low as 1.28 million this May, a 30% dropoff. Existing home sales have fallen even further, from a 6.6-million-unit peak in January 2021 to a 3.9-million-unit nadir this June – a 41% haircut.

The market is solid. It is within a whisker of the high. But this is the last week of August. What will it do when investors start really paying attention again after Labor Day?

There has been some back and forth recently. The indexes pulled back as technology and the AI trade ran out of gas. But then stocks rallied again after the Fed Chairman indicated at the Jackson Hole speech last week that the central bank would finally cut the fed funds rate in September. Wall Street loves rate cuts.

A theme that has emerged in the last couple of weeks is rotation out of this summer’s high-flyers and into some of the market’s biggest laggards of recent months. While this is encouraging from our perspective, especially since it bodes well for some of the turnarounds in our portfolio, it’s also a reason for embracing a measure of caution, as it shows that the broad market still isn’t firing on all cylinders.

Small caps raced to multi-month highs early last week and, despite the weakness in the tech-heavy Nasdaq this week, small caps are holding up relatively well.

The iShares Core S&P Small-Cap ETF (IJR) is trading right around 114, which was the zone of overhead resistance in July that the index punched through last Wednesday.

Historically, small caps – and especially small-cap value stocks – have tended to do well during the beginning of rate-cutting periods. This puts a lot of pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech tomorrow in Jackson Hole.

Credo Tech (CRDO) up 10% on Earnings

WHAT TO DO NOW: The weakening of growth stocks that’s been going on for weeks has resulted in all-out selling this week—we came in with 43% in cash, which has helped, but today we’re selling the rest of our Palantir (PLTR) and Rubrik (RBRK) stakes, leaving us with a large 57% on the sideline. Details below.

With a slew of fresh ideas coming in tomorrow’s August Issue and a portfolio that may soon have too many ideas to stay on top of, I’m trimming one position today.

Sell a Quarter Position in Intel (INTC)

Most of our cannabis companies reported earnings in the past week.

Here are some of the key sector insights, followed by company updates.

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.

WHAT TO DO NOW: The indexes continue to look good, and the big-picture (months down the road) outlook is very favorable. But growth stocks remain hit and miss, with some newer names perking up but many potholes out there, too. Today, we’re going to sell one-third of our stake in GE Aerospace (GE), which has been a fine performer, but it’s been lagging a bit, got hit today and many in the group have topped. We’ll take a few chips off the table and hold the rest, leaving us with around 42% in cash.

Doximity (DOCS) Delivers

Chief Analyst Paul Goodwin answers questions about the Cabot Emerging Markets Investor.

The Cabot Dividend Investor portfolio currently holds three ETFs, one in each tier of our portfolio. Their distributions come from a variety of sources, including qualified stock dividends, non-qualified stock dividends, preferred stock dividends, MLP and CEF distributions, and possibly some fixed income distributions. That affects how you will pay taxes on the income, since ETF distributions are taxed based on their original source—i.e., how the fund earned them. So it’s important to know what your ETFs hold and what types of dividends those securities pay.

A BDC, or Business Development Company, is an investment that gives ordinary investors a way to participate in the rarified world of venture capital.

If you follow these rules, you’re sure to boost your portfolio’s results.

My stock-picking strategy has been refined over the course of 28 years, and has been quite stable for the last six years. My investment goals are (1) minimize stock market risk, (2) achieve capital gains, with dividends as a welcome addition to total return and (3) outperform the U.S. stock markets.

Our market timing indicators are discussed in every issue of Cabot Growth Investor. Here are detailed explanations of what they are and how we use them.

Changing interest rates affect all income investors, but since they can have a wide variety of effects, figuring out whether changes in rates are going to help you or hurt you can be a complex problem.

These rules are the foundation of the Cabot Market Letter investment philosophy.

These are the six fundamental characteristics that correlated most highly with profits in a 10-year study of stocks bought for the Model Portfolio of the Cabot Growth Investor.

Our instincts warn us that stocks reaching all-time highs are invariably overdue to fall. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. We examine two common scenarios involving stocks that are about to rise—or fall—from new high prices.

Here are two points to bear in mind when you’re setting a target price for your small-cap stock stop-loss.

Here’s exactly what I look for in dividend-paying stocks, whether they’re joining the High Yield, Dividend Growth or Safe Income tiers of our portfolio.