November 17, 2021

In the November Issue of Cabot Early Opportunities, we take our first step into the crypto economy, delve deeper into international e-commerce markets, bring in another security specialist, attempt to fix the world’s supply chains and jump back into a high-end consigner that’s finally past the pandemic’s ill effects.

Market Overview

Stock Name	Market Cap	Price	Investment Type
Coinbase (COIN)	$72.2 billion	342	Rapid Growth – Crypto Exchange
Descartes (DSGX) - Trade	$7.6 billion	90.4	Growth – Software
Sea Limited (SE)	$182 billion	330	Rapid Growth – E-commerce & Gaming
SentinelOne (S)	$19.8 billion	74.7	Rapid Growth - Security
The RealReal (REAL)	$1.56 billion	16.9	Rapid Growth – Internet Retail

The Future Is Now

I’ve been thinking more and more about how quickly things are changing, especially in the tech world.

For instance, in late-2015 when I first joined Cabot, cloud software was a term that needed explaining. Now, it’s just assumed that a software company (at least a good one) is leveraging the cloud in some way.

Similarly, terms like machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) were a relatively new part of investing lingo a few years ago. Not now.

It feels like we’re in the early stages of another big leap forward in technological innovation where the power of newer technologies (ML, AI, cloud, digital, etc.) is speeding things up so much that it dwarfs the pace of prior leaps.

This concept of faster innovation cycles isn’t new. Back in 1942 an economist named Joseph Schumpeter coined the term “creative destruction” and looked at innovation in the context of cycles. The idea is that throughout history different industries have outsized impacts on the economy and completely reshape trends as varied as trade, wealth dispersion, demographics, and more.

There is a great website, visualcapitalist.com, that has a graphic using data from the Edelson Institute that puts this concept into pictures. Here it is.

As you can see, the idea is that these innovation waves are getting shorter and shorter. The one most of us likely remember best is the growth of the internet (the fifth wave), which spurred adoption of software, social media, e-commerce, etc.

Now, we are into the sixth wave, which will be powered by digital technologies including AI, ML, IoT, robotics, clean technology, automation, predictive analytics and extremely powerful data processing.

As we move through this wave tasks that used to take days or hours will be completed in minutes, or even seconds. And they will be done by software, robots, etc.

That may sound a little farfetched. But it’s not, not even close. Companies like Microsoft (MSFT), Bill.com (BILL), Avalara (AVLR), Kornit Digital (KRNT), CS Disco (LAW), DigitalOcean (DOCN) and so many more are already doing it in their respective markets.

Furthermore, we’ve already seen how quickly some of these innovative companies can scale digital operations. The pace is mindboggling, especially as compared to the pace of growth of old economy companies.

For example, Exxon (XOM) is almost 140 years old. It was once considered a monster company. Now, it has a market cap of $275 million. Not bad. And while the future of oil dependence is in question there’s no arguing that Exxon’s role in bringing oil and gas - which most of the world is still reliant on - to global markets has been massive.

But consider that Snowflake (SNOW) is only nine years old and has a market cap of $119 billion, Airbnb (ABNB) is 13 years old with a market cap of $132 billion, Sea Limited (SE) is 11 years old with a market cap of $181 billion and Coinbase (COIN) at nine years old has a market cap of $72 billion and Exxon no longer seems like such a monster.
Then there are the middle-aged companies that came into being entering the fifth wave or had some scale entering it and recognized that the world was changing so they adapted to suit the times. Then they led the charge.

In this group (which is admittedly loosely defined) I lump Microsoft, 46 years old with a $2.5 trillion market cap, Apple (AAPL), 45 years old with $2.5 trillion market cap, Amazon (AMZN), 27 years old with $1.8 trillion market cap and Alphabet (GOOG), 23 years old with $2 trillion market cap.

These guys have crushed it and totally distanced themselves from other “big tech” companies from decades ago that, had they played their cards differently, could have been in the mix.

In this group let’s toss IBM (IBM), 110 years old with $106 billion market cap, and Hewlett Packard (HPE) and HP Inc. (HPQ), 74 years old with a combined market cap near $56 billion. There are many more.

The lesson there is that the leaders of one wave may or may not be the leaders in the next. It totally depends on how the world evolves, how management teams evolve the companies they lead, and how investors perceive the strategic paths companies take.

That last point should not be overlooked.

Increasingly, I think investors are playing a bigger role in creating success for public companies. As we allocate dollars to certain “leaders” and their stocks rise they are able to monetize that success through share offerings and by using their stock as currency to buy other innovative companies and/or buy up the competition.

While this has been the case throughout history to some degree, and I don’t have the data to back it up, it seems to be playing a much, much larger role in the success of companies today.

Back on the topic of innovation cycles, I think the constant challenge for us as investors is to try not to get too locked into a mindset based on even the recent past and how things unfolded then, because the pace of change in the future is likely to be exponentially quicker than anything we’ve experienced to date.

This may be why certain stocks are total rule breakers when it comes to valuation.

Perfect examples are Snowflake and Tesla (TSLA). I mean really, does anybody care what the PE or EV/forward revenue multiples for these stocks are, besides the analysts who need to anchor a price target with some sort of mathematical logic?

The important thing to investors is that they are extremely innovative companies that can scale up very quickly. As a result, their stocks break financial models, and brains.

As we move forward into the end of 2021 and hopefully close the chapter on a very messed up couple of years, let’s try to keep these big picture concepts of innovation, pace of change, exponential growth, etc. in mind.
While we certainly don’t want to become cultlike, sidestepping “normal” stocks and chanting “the future is now, the future is now,” I do want to make sure we continue to gain exposure to companies that have a chance of being the future disruptors.

That has been the goal of Cabot Early Opportunities from the outset. But it feels important to bring it back to the front of the conversation now.

This month, I feature a couple candidates that I think fit the bill especially well, including Coinbase (COIN) and SentinelOne (S). The risks are high, but so are the potential rewards.

I hope you enjoy reading those stories, and more.

What to Do Now
Same as last month, we’re leaning bullish but keeping an ear to the ground as there are plenty of potholes out there that could trip up the market.
Our efforts to manage our portfolio size are working as we’ve been able lock in several profitable positions over the last month, while keeping most of our strongest performers.

Let’s continue to cull positions that aren’t doing much and to take quick profits on the swing trade opportunities (or quickly limit losses) that I’m now including in every Issue.

On the buy side we have fewer names to choose from in the current portfolio than a month ago. Today’s new crop will refresh the buy list. Still, big picture I’d like to keep fewer names at buy as we try to keep a tighter focus.

Stock Summaries

Coinbase (COIN)

Coinbase (COIN) is a company that’s very young, rapidly evolving, growing at a blistering pace and, let’s face it, plays in a market (crypto) not well understood by the masses. To put it mildly, a wide range of share price performance outcomes are possible.

Buying the stock now is akin to saying, I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but I want exposure to crypto (a $2 trillion market, up from $800 billion less than a year ago) and this is one of the easiest ways to get it.

Coinbase is one of the leading exchanges for cryptocurrencies. Other options include Robinhood (HOOD), Binance, eToro, Kraken, Gemini and Crypto.com, among others.

Coinbase is to crypto what Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, etc. are to stocks. If you want to buy, sell, transfer and/or store Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Solana, Cardano, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Polygon and dozens of other crypto assets, Coinbase can help you out.

The company was founded in 2012 with a vision to create an open financial system so people can make better lives for themselves. That ties in to one of the underlying reasons people want to own cryptocurrencies – they don’t have, or don’t want to work through, traditional banking channels.

This may not seem too important in countries with stable currencies. But if you lived in Argentina, Turkey or some other country where the domestic currency fluctuates wildly (some have lost 50%, 80%, or more of their value at times) you’d probably feel differently.

That said, there are also a lot of people interested in crypto as a store of value, for diversification, or simply a speculation.

At the end of the day you don’t need to share the same vision as the Coinbase founders to use their platform. You just need to want to buy, sell or store crypto assets.

Management says the strength of the platform rests on five pillars: trust, crypto-first tech, easy-to-use products, continuous innovation, and scale. Honestly, you could replace “crypto-first” with (fill in the blank) and the same could be said for any aspiring-to-be great software platform with a significant market opportunity. But I digress.

To me, the attraction of Coinbase is that it gives people easy access to crypto markets, it’s a brand name and, because it’s public, there’s more regulation, scrutiny and transparency into what the company is doing. Those factors should help people that want to dip a toe into the weird, annoying, scary, exciting, interesting, educational and potentially profitable world of crypto when they otherwise might not.

Right now, it is an extremely rapid growth business, and likely will be for the foreseeable future as the crypto economy fights to break into the mainstream.

In Q3 2021 (reported November 9) Coinbase’s trading volume grew by a whopping 627% as compared to Q3 2021. Verified users stood at 73 million and retail Monthly Transacting Users (MTUs) grew 252% to 7.4 million. Revenue surged 316% to $1.3 billion.

With that growth, you’d think Coinbase would be losing money. But it’s actually very profitable. Adjusted EPS in Q3 was $1.62.

In 2021 analysts expect revenue to grow by 463% (to $7.2 billion) and for adjusted EPS to hit $12.81.

That all said, Coinbase is HIGHLY leveraged to crypto market conditions and crypto asset prices, which are volatile at times and drive trading activity on the platform. As a result, there is significant variability in the business.

For example, in Q3 2021 as compared to Q2 2021 trading volume at Coinbase declined by 29%. While the decline was smaller than that posted by global crypto trading volumes (down 37% over the same time frame), it still illustrates the variability underlying this business. Coinbase’s revenue in Q3 was down 39% as compared to Q2.

On the conference call management indicated October was very strong, raising expectations for Q4. It appears volume on Coinbase is growing more rapidly than with peers.

The investment community is increasingly looking at crypto as a play on the next major step in the evolution of the internet (i.e. Web 3.0), where applications and services are powered by distributed ledger tech (i.e. blockchain and similar tech). That’s sort of a big deal.

There are a lot of growth initiatives right now. The employee base has more than doubled over the last year (to 2,781 in Q3) and new products include a Prime brokerage aimed at institutional customers, a direct deposit solution, Coinbase Wallet and the Coinbase NFT, a peer-to-peer NFT (non-fungible token) marketplace.
At the end of the day, Coinbase is trying to become more than just a platform for trading crypto (though trading volumes will drive revenue for the foreseeable future); it’s trying to become the main financial account people use for the crypto economy.

It is arguably the easiest way to play the trend and appears well positioned to continue adapting its business model as the crypto economy evolves.

We’ll jump in and see how it goes.

The Stock
COIN came public via direct listing at 250 on April 14, 2021. Shares rose 31% the first day to close at 328 but over the next month COIN lost ground. It spent most of the summer trading between 210 and 250, with the exception of a couple quick runs to 294 and 281 in August and September, respectively. By the end of September COIN was trading at 224. Shares then rallied through October and by the end of the month were at 330. COIN peaked at 357 right before Q3 earnings came out (11/9) then dipped 8% the day afterward. Over the last few sessions COIN has traded higher, indicating the bullish trend remains intact.

Descartes Systems (DSGX)
We owned Descartes Systems (DSGX) for a spell last year and did well (profit of 38% in five months). We’re going back to the well today because the company is a consistent grower, there should be a modest tailwind due to the supply chain investments in the recently signed infrastructure bill, and because DSGX has just broken out to new highs.

We will enter this position with a swing traders perspective, trying to capture the bulk of a (hopeful) upside move that could deliver 10% to 20% within a few weeks or months.

The backstory is that Descartes is a $7.6 billion market cap company that specializes in logistics management software solutions. The company operates the largest multi-modal logistics network in the world. Its range of product offerings and integrations has led to loyal, long-term customers.

Big picture, this company is all about software that helps things get where they need to go. As we’ve all learned, this is something customers need in all times given increasingly complex global trade networks that are often disrupted, delaying delivery times.

Descartes helps customers overcome these challenges by offering faster deliveries to market. The secret sauce is a proprietary logistics data and an analytics platform that automates and optimizes inefficient delivery processes.

Products span connectivity and document exchange, route planning, inventory and asset visibility, wireless dispatch, rate management and warehouse optimization.

Descartes was a double-digit growth story prior to the pandemic. Revenue was up 16% in fiscal 2019 and 18% in fiscal 2020 (ended January 31, 2020). Adjusted EPS rose by 14% and 13%, in 2019 and 2020, respectively.

The pandemic dented growth and in fiscal 2021 (ended January 31, 2021) revenue grew by just 7%, to $349 billion. However, adjusted EPS surged 36% (more than double the normal growth rate) to $0.61.

This year the business is doing extremely well. Over the first two quarters of fiscal 2022 revenue has grown by 18% and 24%, respectively. For the full year analysts see Descartes growing by 23%, to $430 million. Adjusted EPS is seen up huge again, by 62% to $0.99. Management will report Q3 results on December 1.

The Stock
DSGX has been a strong performer in 2021 and especially since Q1 earnings came out June 2, after which DSGX went on a multi-month rally that carried the stock from 58 to a high of 87 by September 23. Shares pulled back by 12% after that, then spent the month of October regrouping around 80. Over the last two weeks DSGX has returned to its previous high near 87, and this week shares have broken out to new highs. I think we can catch an updraft here so we’re jumping in.

Sea Limited (SE)
I’ve kept an eye on Sea Limited (SE) since the company came public in 2017. While it is a much more mature company now than a few years ago, Sea’s dominant position as an e-commerce and mobile gaming/social media player in Southeast Asia, and an emerging business in Latin America, suggest it’s better “late” than never.

Plus, with a little dip in shares after reporting Q2 results yesterday morning it looks like an attractive opportunity to establish a position. On to the story.

Sea Limited, which has a market cap of $179 billion, is a mash up of three different businesses.

The first is Garena, an online game developer and publisher. Garena was started in 2009 and provides users access to popular mobile and PC games that it develops, curates and localizes. A distinguishing feature of the platform is Garena’s tilt toward games that have a social angle.

Garena’s biggest success to date is Free Fire, a hugely popular mobile battle royale game. Free Fire was the most downloaded mobile game in the world in 2019 and 2020 and was also the highest grossing mobile game in Latin America Southeast Asia and India in 2020. Garena is also an esports organizer, hosting esports events around the world.

In Q3 2021 Garena grew active users by 27% to 729 million and paying users by 43% to 93.2 million. The pace of growth in users has decelerated in recent quarters, which is worth keeping an eye on. However, the launch of Free Fire Max could turn things around.

The second is Shopee, the leading e-commerce platform across Southeast Asia and Taiwan (also just launched in Brazil and Mexico). Shopee is sort of like that region’s Amazon (AMZN), except it is a much younger business (launched 2015), began as a mobile-first platform and has a strong social component. Shopee has a huge product assortment, integrated payments and smooth fulfillment. It was the 3^rd most downloaded shopping app in 2020.

In Q3 2021 Shoppe grew gross orders by 123% to 1.7 billion and sold $16.8 billion in gross merchandise value (up 81%). Shoppe outperformed expectations in Q3.

The third business is Sea Money, which offers solutions for digital payments and financial services. Sea Money was launched in 2014 and offers mobile wallet services, payment processing, credit and more under the ShopeePay and SPayLater brands, among others.

In Q3 2021 Sea Money’s totally payment volume grew roughly 111% to $4.6 billion. It appears the company’s growing online lending business is doing very well and Sea Money is well positioned to be a major fintech player in target markets.

Altogether, Sea Limited generated 2020 revenue of $4.38 billion (up 101%) and adjusted EPS off -$2.78. In Q3 2021, reported yesterday morning, revenue was $2.7 billion (up 122%).

This is a sizeable company that’s evolving quickly so under the surface of the three businesses there are a lot of moving parts. For instance, reports indicate that Shopee continues to be the dominant platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan and that rollouts in Europe, Brazil and Mexico are going well, albeit not yet at scale to be very profitable (if at all). And ShopeeFood (food delivery) and buy-now-pay-later services are add-ons that should help propel growth, possibly in very meaningful ways.

The bottom line is Sea Limited is a force to be reckoned with in Southeast Asia and with expansions into Europe and Latin America its track record implies years of future growth remain. As we’ve seen with Amazon, these buildouts require intense investment, which will keep Sea from being profitable anytime soon. And with three different businesses there is some give and take quarter to quarter. Scale is the name of the game here, and that’s why we’re buying on this dip.

The Stock
SE went public at 15 in October 2017 and rose 8% before settling into a rather subdued trading pattern that extended until March 2019. Interest then perked up and SE began gaining ground. By spring 2020 the stock was trading north of 50 and from there it has mostly been a steady series of higher highs and higher lows. The one meaningful aberration was a period between February and June 2020 when SE suffered two corrections of nearly 30% in quick succession. But since then, the pattern of pullbacks in the mid-teens percentage areas has resumed. With shares roughly 10%-15% off a recent high following the Q2 earnings report it looks like a good time to buy.

SentinelOne (S)
SentinelOne (S) specializes in endpoint protection (EPP) solutions for enterprise clients, which is a fancy way of saying it protects internet-connected devices from the attacks of bad actors.

The company, which has a market cap of $19.8 billion, is one of the new crop of upstart, cloud-based providers that’s grabbing market share from legacy, on-premise companies such as Microsoft, McAfee, Symantec and Trend Micro. It sports a splendidly high valuation given a triple digit growth rate. That’s fine provided management executes on the growth opportunity in front of them.

SentinelOne is winning business because its Singularity platform offers the necessary protection companies need now that roughly 50% of all enterprise employees are working outside of the office (compared to well under 10% before Covid), where the old tools to fight cyberattacks just don’t cut it.

More specifically, SentinelOne offers a cloud-based, fully autonomous AI-powered Extended Detection and Response (XDR) platform that boasts faster fix times than legacy vendors, and some next-gen SaaS providers too.

There are a few key benefits to SentinelOne’s offering, some of which help to distinguish it from direct competitor CrowdStrike (CRWD), which we’ve held in the portfolio since 2019 (we’re currently up over 400% on our remaining half position).

First, SentinelOne’s platform is cloud-based but it simultaneously extends to physical endpoints. In the case of a network disconnect the latest update resides on the device, so SentinelOne is essentially always on. In contrast, CrowdStrike requires a constant broadband connection. There are ways CrowdStrike can work around interruptions but still, this is a major difference.

Second, SentinelOne uses an autonomous, AI-driven platform that is out hunting threats, then offering defensive fixes without human interference. CrowdStrike’s platform requires human interaction once cyber-attacks are detected.

Finally, SentinelOne offers ActiveEDR with Storyline tech, which creates a profile for each endpoint and, with the assistance of the XDR platform, quicker responses on the device and one-click fixes.

At the end of the day, the big thing to remember is that SentinelOne offers automated endpoint protection for both large and small companies. With three products (Singularity Core, Control and Complete), as well as eight additional modules, there are ample upsell and cross-sell opportunities for the sales team to grow revenue share once customers are on the platform.

How well they pull in customers over the next twelve months will likely determine how well the stock does. Revenue grew by 121% in Q2 2021 and consensus estimates call for revenue to double to $190 million this year, then grow another 75% in 2022.

But those figures could easily be conservative as SentinelOne has less than 2% market share (Crowdstrike has just over 10%). Even a small percentage gain in the roughly $10 billion endpoint protection market would translate into a meaningful revenue boost.

SentinelOne is expected to report Q3 2021 results on Tuesday, December 7.

The Stock
S came public at 35 on June 20, 2021 and jumped 21% the first day. The stock was a little up and down in the weeks afterward but in mid-August S went on a furious rally that carried the stock from 46 to 73.5 by September 7. The Q2 report and subsequent market volatility sent S back down to 50 by early October, but shares turned north quickly and over the last month and a half rallied to a new high of 76. The stock has spent the last week trading in the low-to-mid 70s.

The RealReal (REAL)
We took a swing at The RealReal (REAL) at a higher price just over two years ago when it was a recent IPO, and it didn’t work out. We’re stepping back up to the plate now that it’s a more mature company, expectations (and share price) are lower, and because there’s a potential re-opening/holiday tailwind that could give shares a boost into year end.

We will enter this as a swing trade opportunity, targeting a modest, double-digit return within a few weeks to a few months.

The backstory is that The RealReal is a luxury consignment retailer founded by Julie Wainwright in 2011. Ms. Wainwright believed that many luxury buyers want an easy and discreet way to sell items that feel a little out of trend to them, but that more mainstream buyers would love to purchase at a discount.

She developed the business model for the company from her home and, in the early days, rented vans to visit consigners at their homes. The business took off, and despite a few wobbles after coming public (like ironing out authentication processing and navigating a global pandemic) The RealReal is now a booming online business with a few physical locations (18 to be exact) too.

The breadth of curated goods spans women’s, men’s and kids’ fashion, watches, home décor, fine art and fine jewelry. There are a ton of brands represented on the platform, including Gucci, Cartier, Burberry, Rolex, Prada and Jimmy Choo.

In both 2018 and 2019 the business grew by over 50%. The wheels came off the bus in 2020 when the entire fashion world, as well as consignment supply chains, were thrown into chaos. Forced closure of California-based authentication operations were kind of a big growth hurdle.

In 2020, revenue declined by 6%. It was, in essence, a lost year. Both for the business and the stock.

Activity on the platform has been picking up, however. And it’s very possible REAL is in the early stages of a sizeable move higher, supported by a sustained turnaround in the business.

Over the last three quarters sales have grown by 27%, 83% and 53%, respectively. In the most recent quarter (Q3 fiscal 2021, reported on November 8), management said gross merchandise value (GMV) grew by 50% over 2020 and by 46% over 2019. Also, 84% of GMV came from repeat buyers.

Revenue in Q3 hit $118.8 million, $5.3 million ahead of consensus.

While there is considerable room for improvement (active buyers up 25% to 225K in Q3, but still well below the high of 400K two years ago) the trough in the business appears to have been three or four quarters ago.

Now, with an authentication center relocated to Arizona from California and $445 million in the bank (almost 30% of market cap) and sales and gross profit trends improving (gross profit up $4 to $94 last quarter) the road ahead looks a light brighter than the path just traveled.

Management has said the impacts of the pandemic are “effectively behind us.” And an interesting twist is that The RealReal, as a consigner, doesn’t suffer from the same supply chain and inflation challenges as other retailers (it has its own challenges to be sure).

Put it all together and I think REAL could perform well in the coming weeks and months. We’ll jump in here and see if we can catch a rally.

The Stock
REAL went public at 20 in June 2019 and peaked at 30 that day. It was pretty much all downhill from there, with REAL eventually losing 80% of its value by the end of March 2020. Like most stocks the initial pandemic recovery was rapid, and REAL even got back to its prior high early in 2021. But the business trends weren’t strong enough and REAL has had a choppy 2021. A spring rally was cut short at 22.8 in mid-June and from August 10 through November 8 REAL floundered in the 11.2 to 14.75 range. But then the Q3 earnings report catalyzed a 19% rally in the stock, which jumped back above 15 for the first time since early-August. With a “bad to better” story line, I think REAL offers double-digit profit potential in the near term.

Previously Recommended Stocks

We’ve trimmed a number of positions and made a number of ratings changes since the October Issue of Cabot Early Opportunities. Since these have all been communicated via Special Bulletins and I sent an updated table of portfolio holdings, current returns and recently sold positions late last week, I’m not going to list all of the prior four week’s changes here. Please reference the tables below, and as always just reach out if you have any questions.

In terms of changes being made today this is what we have:

Fisker (FSR) moves to HOLD after a multi-week run.

Dynatrace (DT) is moved to SELL after a poorly received quarterly report and surprise announcement the CEO is leaving. While I think the replacement CEO will be good the bottom line is there is now another layer of uncertainty in the stock and I think investors will want to see near perfect execution in the coming quarters. My feeling is there are other stocks where we can put the money and generate a superior return in the near term. SELL

Upwork (UPWK) is moved to SELL. We’re still up 125% on our remaining position and with the stock up and down in recent months without any real direction I think the safe move is to take the gain and move UPWK back to the watch list. SELL

D-Local (DLO) is moved to HOLD in the wake of yesterday’s earnings report. I am currently evaluating the report, and the stock’s action this morning, and will update you via Special Bulletin regarding next steps.

Regarding Asana (ASAN), which has been on our watch list since mid-September, I have been tempted to jump in but decided we’d wait to see how the upcoming quarterly report is (scheduled for December 2) before making a move. It’s a name I like a lot, and the chart looks terrific. It’s mainly that shares seemed priced for perfection and if the quarter isn’t amazing I fear ASAN could stumble (which might be exactly what we want!).

An updated table of all stocks rated BUY, HOLD and WATCH as well as recent stocks SOLD, is included below.

Please note that stocks rated BUY are suitable for purchasing now. In all cases, and especially recent IPOs, I suggest averaging into every stock to spread out your cost basis.

For stocks rated BUY A HALF, you should average into a position size that’s roughly half the dollar value of your typical position. We may do this when stocks have little trading history (for instance IPOs), when there is more uncertainty in the market or with a stock than normal, or if a stock has recently jumped higher.

Those rated HOLD are stocks that still look good and are recommended to be kept in a long-term oriented portfolio. Or they’ve pulled back a little and are under consideration for being dropped.

Stocks rated SOLD didn’t pan out, or the uptrend has run its course for the time being. They should be sold if you own them. SOLD stocks are listed in one monthly Issue, then they fall off the SOLD list.

Please use this list to keep up with my latest thinking, and don’t hesitate to email with any questions.

^Average of high and low price if published intraday, or closing price if published after 4 PM ET

^Average of high and low price if published intraday, or closing price if published after 4 PM ET

The next issue of Cabot Early Opportunities will be published on December 15, 2021.