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Growth Investor
Helping Investors Build Wealth Since 1970

Cabot Growth Investor Issue: March 7, 2024

The market remains in a solid uptrend, though there’s no question some sellers are beginning to step up, with more volatility in the Nasdaq seen in the past month and, outside of chip stocks, some churning in the leading stocks. That’s not bearish, per se, as we’re still riding our winners, but for new buying we’re being more selective and looking for fresher leaders that have recently emerged with some power. In the Model Portfolio, we sold one stock in the past two weeks while starting a half-sized stake in one of those fresher leaders, and tonight, we’re averaging up in that name and starting another new position, too.

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Some Churning, but Fresher Names Emerge

For the most part, the hubbub of late has continued to revolve around select AI stocks, with a few (almost all of which are chip name) continuing to race up the charts as good news is released and analysts trip over themselves to up their price targets. However, when you dig a little deeper, the reality is that for most stocks that have been running for a few months, the situation is getting trickier—we’ve seen a few (usually extended) leaders either crack or show wild action after earnings, and in general, there’s been a lot more churning seen in the past month (lots of ups and downs, little price progress), even among the Nasdaq.

That leaves us with a situation where many popular leaders are either (a) very extended to the upside or (b) coming under some distribution—neither of which is our favorite recipe for new buying. To be clear, the action isn’t abnormal in the big picture, as some selling and profit taking is going to happen at some point—and we still think more than a few big winners (including some we own) can get a lot bigger down the road. So we’re happy to hold and ride the names higher. But piling in is far from a high-odds bet right here.

On the buy side, then, we’re looking for fresher leaders that are earlier in their moves, have shown great power and have the growth story and numbers we hunt for. And the good news is that we are finding more money moving into these situations: Retail and consumer names are historically one of our favorite areas to find bigger winners, and we’re pleased to see more of them flexing their muscles (see more on that later in this issue), while there are some select technology and even AI names (outside of infrastructure) that have taken off. We’re putting some money to work tonight.

In simpler terms: The market has become more of a stock-by-stock situation, which isn’t unusual at this point in an intermediate-term advance. We’re holding all (or most of) our strong performers because they continue to trend higher and, based on a mountain of evidence (including our still-bullish market timing indicators and the strength seen in recent months—again, see more later in this issue on that topic), the odds favor the market being nicely higher down the road. But we still think being selective on the buy side makes sense, with a focus on fresher names that could power the next wave of upside among the leaders.

What to Do Now

Manage your current winners and look to put money to work selectively in enticing growth names that are beginning to emerge. In the Model Portfolio, we cut bait on Elastic (ESTC) after a poor earnings reaction, but we started a half-sized position in AppLovin (APP) last Friday—and tonight, we’re going to fill out our position in APP as well as start a new half-sized stake in Cava Group (CAVA), which has a cookie-cutter story that should lead to years of growth. We’re also restoring our Buy rating on Pulte (PHM). All told, our cash position will be around 27%.

Model Portfolio Update

The past month has been very choppy for most leading growth stocks, at least those outside the chip sector—with lots of wild moves and little net progress for the Nasdaq or growth measures (like the IBD 50 Index) since February 9. That’s not a death knell, but we take it at face value, as it’s clear more and more investors are willing to take profits into strength.

Of course, what has really counted most in the past few weeks is what you own—essentially, it’s become more of a stock picker’s environment, with many names chopping around but some reacting well to earnings and otherwise doing well. Put it all together, and we’re OK holding some cash and picking our spots on the buy side ... however, given the big-picture positives and the fact that we’re seeing more “fresher” leaders in a variety of sectors (like retail—see more on that later in this issue), we are redeploying some money tonight.

In the Model Portfolio, we sold our position in Elastic (ESTC) in two stages as the stock broke key support after earnings, but we started a position in Applovin (APP) last Friday, and we’ll go ahead and buy more (another 5%) tonight, while also starting a half-sized stake in Cava Group (CAVA). That will leave us with 27% cash, which is still a bit high in our mind, so we’ll look to add some of the aforementioned fresher leaders if the market remains supportive.

CURRENT RECOMMENDATIONS

StockNo. of SharesPortfolio WeightingsPrice BoughtDate BoughtPrice on 3/7/24ProfitRating
AppLovin (APP)1,6785%613/1/24633%Buy Another Half
Arista Networks (ANET)5457%22611/22/2328626%Hold
Cava Group (CAVA)------New Buy a Half
CrowdStrike (CRWD)5659%1639/1/23331103%Hold
DraftKings (DKNG)3,1006%296/23/234345%Hold
Elastic (ESTC)------Sold
Nutanix (NTNX)3,0769%3911/3/236567%Buy
PulteGroup (PHM)2,01911%9112/1/2311424%Buy
Shift4 Payments (FOUR)1,2465%761/12/24816%Hold
Uber (UBER)3,03711%445/19/237979%Buy
CASH$722,90337%

AppLovin (APP)—AppLovin looks like a new leader that has mobs of potential—while the firm’s old games business here is still shrinking (albeit profitable), the big draw is the firm’s next-generation online advertising engine (Axon 2.0, released less than a year ago) that’s advanced (using machine learning and the like) and is producing booming results for clients, which in turn has them turning to AppLovin more and more. So far, most of the action is ads placed on mobile games, but the company is set to move into other areas (like connected TV) and expand its market further, which should keep growth humming. Growth should be excellent this year, but a big part of the attraction is also the margins and cash flow—in Q4, the Axon business not only grew a big 88% from a year ago but saw EBITDA margins of 73% (!!) while free cash flow came in around 90 cents per share (vs. 49 cents of reported earnings) for the company as a whole, and there should a lot more of that coming through 2024 and beyond. That’s allowing the firm to buy back stock, which it prefers to do in chunks; earlier this week, it officially gobbled up nearly 10.5 million shares (3% of the entire company) in one fell swoop after some closely-held shares hit the market. We bought a half-sized stake last week and will fill out our position now, using a loss limit in the low 50s for the entire position. BUY ANOTHER HALF

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Arista Networks (ANET)—ANET pulled back 14% before and after earnings, but it held its 10-week line and began to bounce … and kept bouncing, so much so that the stock notched new closing price highs this week, though we would note the relative performance line (not shown in the chart here) hasn’t yet confirmed the move. Even so, there’s no doubt the overall uptrend is intact, and so far big investors are willing to discount the future (looking into 2025), as it appears more and more of a sure thing that AI-related networking spend will boom—and that Arista will be one of the main beneficiaries. If you don’t own any and want to start a position, we wouldn’t argue with it, but given the churning seen in many extended leaders of late (downs followed by ups followed by downs, etc.), we’re going to stay on Hold tonight and see how ANET handles itself after the recent rebound. HOLD

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Cava Group (CAVA)—We’re always up for a fast-moving tech stock, but right up there among our favorite situations is a young, dynamic cookie-cutter story like Cava, with an enticing concept (in this case, fast-casual Mediterranean fare) that’s proven across many locations around the country (from the Northeast to the South to the West, the firm’s restaurants have cranked out solid sales production everywhere) that has tons of whitespace in the years ahead—in Cava’s case, the top brass thinks it can grow the store base 15% annually through 2032, resulting in 1,000-ish restaurants by then (up from 290 today). And driving that expansion plan are some very solid store economics, with 35% of the initial opening expenses being paid back in year 2 alone—which is one reason the company is already profitable for both earnings (albeit in a small way, with 12 cents per share last year and 25 cents expected in 2024) and EBITDA. Near-term, expect 20% revenue and slightly faster EBITDA growth, but the big prize is the long-term potential, with the firm likely to grow many-fold in the years to come. Now, the valuation here isn’t cheap, and frankly the stock isn’t at a pristine entry point, but big investors have a long history of bidding up proven cookie-cutter concepts for years at a time (since the shelf life of the growth story is almost always long lasting), and CAVA seems like the type of new name that hundreds more big investors could accumulate in the quarters to come if all goes well. Plus, chart-wise, we like the fact that CAVA just recently overcame its post-IPO high from last year and enjoyed a nice volume cluster (three straight days of big-volume buying after a sharp pullback) following the Q4 report and another two good buying days this week—a sign institutions were active, which should (in theory) offer support if shares do retreat near-term. It’s aggressive, but we’re going to start a half-sized position (5% of the account) and use a loose loss limit in the lower 50s in case the stock (or market) head in the wrong direction. NEW BUY A HALF

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CrowdStrike (CRWD)—CRWD’s Q4 report backed up the view that the firm’s rapid and reliable growth story is on track and should continue for years to come, despite a couple of big hiccups from cybersecurity peers of late. In the quarter, CrowdStrike’s annualized recurring revenue surged 34%, net new recurring revenue added to the tally lifted 27%, earnings crushed estimates (95 cents vs. 82 expected) and free cash flow grew 35% and came in at $1.14 per share. Nearly as encouraging were some details it revealed among its newer products like cloud, identity security and logscale SIEM, which combined had north of $850 million of recurring revenue by quarter’s end. That said, the stock showed similar action to what’s been going on among many non-chip leaders—since gapping up strongly, the stock gave up a huge chunk of the move and is back within the range it’s occupied for the past month. Big picture, we think CRWD is likely fine, but the selling on strength is notable, especially with many peers not acting well. Thus, we’ll simply stay on Hold tonight, but will be watching closely; if the selling intensifies we could trim the position a bit, but for now, sitting tight and letting the stock find firm ground makes the most sense. HOLD

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DraftKings (DKNG)—DKNG continues to hack around since earnings three weeks ago (generally between 40 and 45), which, frankly, we’re completely fine with—while we cut our position in half during the stock’s early-January weakness (it had been lagging the nascent uptrend for a few weeks before cracking the 50-day line), we’re not opposed to adding some shares back to our stake if DKNG sets up properly. Fundamentally, nothing has changed here, and while competition is always present, the longer DraftKings gains market share (in both sports betting and iGaming—the latter of which one analyst thinks is underappreciated), the greater the chance big investors look past the endless competitive threats, similar to what’s gone on with Uber in recent quarters (Lyft’s actions have less effect, for instance). If you own some, hang on. HOLD

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Elastic (ESTC)—Eventually, Elastic’s search platform will probably get a lot of AI business, but that time is not now—and unlike some others, institutions aren’t willing to pay up for the future right here, with shares sinking sharply after earnings, easily slicing intermediate-term support. Of course, the stock is still well above where it was a few months ago, so we’ll keep a distant eye on it to see if it can set up down the road. But such improvement is likely to take a while (and another earnings report or two), if it happens at all. We sold our stake in two chunks (one last Friday, the other on Tuesday). SOLD

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Nutanix (NTNX)—If you dive into Nutanix’s business and story, it’s easy to get an ice cream headache, but there’s no question the firm’s technology platform is appealing to tons of big clients due to its flexibility (hybrid multi-cloud deployments, modern app platforms, etc.) and much lower total cost of ownership than peers. Moreover, in the wake of Broadcom’s buyout of VMware, it appears many VMware clients are unhappy/nervous, which Nutanix’s top brass said is a significant, multi-year opportunity. Moreover, the firm’s GPT-in-a-box (company’s term) is small but seeing quick adoption, as it effectively allowing customers to quickly implement some generative AI offerings with top-notch security (don’t have to run them on the public cloud). The stock remains very much under control, with just one down week since October (!)—given the reaction to earnings last week, we restored our Buy rating for those that aren’t yet in, ideally on dips of a couple of points. BUY

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PulteGroup (PHM)—After running straight up 35 points, PHM spent the next few weeks going straight sideways (between 100 and 110 or so), and now it seems to be getting going again—and, big picture, housing demand (and prices) remain strong, with the recent dip in mortgage rates helping the cause. If you’re looking for blemishes, PHM is lagging a bit behind some industry peers at the moment (the opposite of the situation when we entered a few months ago), and the stock’s RP line (as well as for many others in the group) has yet to confirm the move to new highs. But we’re more focused on the bigger picture here, thinking the lack of giveback after a big rally, tamer mortgage rates and the still-strong economy will lead to more upside surprises for Pulte. We’ll go back to Buy. BUY

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Shift4 Payments (FOUR)—Like most everything of late, FOUR has been extremely volatile, with earnings, buyout rumors and then a buyout denial moving the stock around. However, shares are still in decent shape (standing near the top of their prior range), one of the rumored buyers (Finserv) hasn’t denied being interested and, of course, the company itself is doing just fine, with an excellent 2024 outlook for 40%-ish revenue, EBITDA and free cash flow growth (free cash flow likely easily above $4 per share) as it continues to ink new deals (like with the New York Yankees, announced February 28). If FOUR gives up the ghost (say, a dip back into the lower 70s), we won’t hesitate to sell and move on, but right now, we’re thinking positive—if the stock can settle down for a bit longer and resume its upmove, we could go back to Buy and even average up. For now, we’ll just sit tight with our half-sized stake. HOLD

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Uber (UBER) has also futzed around the past couple of weeks, though it’s hard to throw many stones at it—the fact that UBER has yet to give up any of its gains from its Investor Day (not to mention the past few months) is a good thing overall. Fundamentally, the outlook revealed two weeks ago is obviously the big draw, but there’s a growing consensus that the firm’s runway of growth could last years into the future, partly due to upside in its current businesses (in Rides, increasing penetration in some key markets would be huge—while in Delivery, rapidly moving into other non-restaurant areas, like grocery and retail, is a big opportunity), but also because of some excitement surrounding its newer operations that take advantage of its size and scale: Advertising is the one talked about most these days (already a $1 billion business on a run-rate basis thanks to the eyeballs its app garners), and there’s also Uber Direct (white-label courier service that can deliver merchants’ goods directly; up in 18 markets now with huge growth taking place) and others. Of course, none of that means UBER won’t correct at some point, but the growth story, numbers and chart continue to point toward it being a liquid leader. We’ll stay on Buy, preferably on modest weakness. BUY

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Watch List

  • Axon Enterprises (AXON 317): AXON has grown up in recent quarters as the firm dominates a huge market—being the top technology provider (and a big weapons supplier) to law enforcement and related agencies. Sponsorship is big and the stock is strong after Q4 results revealed more big gains in recurring income.
  • Celsius (CELH 90): CELH has lifted off on the upside after a solid Q4 report and conference call; it looks like international expansion will be the next leg to the growth story. Analysts see sales and earnings up 42% this year, but even those figures will probably prove low. See more later in this issue.
  • Freshpet (FRPT 108): FRPT has an easy-to-understand growth story that, after some hiccups and heavy investments in recent years, is back on track and should produce years of very healthy sales and cash flow growth. The one hesitation here is liquidity, which can bite if the market comes under pressure.
  • Hims & Hers Health (HIMS 14): HIMS has a big story that just makes sense—effectively an online pharmacy with broad physician access that can offer personalized treatments in many common categories. See more later in this issue.
  • Palantir (PLTR 27): PLTR took a couple of hits with the retreat in AI stocks, but it’s come alive again this week on big volume. It’s super-volatile, but we could start a position in the stock if it settles down a bit.
  • Robinhood (HOOD 16): HOOD is likely going to move with (and, fundamentally, be dependent on) the action of the faster-moving assets out there—aggressive growth stocks, crypto, etc.—but that’s OK with us, and the stock continues to act great.

Other Stocks of Interest

On Holdings (ONON 32)—In the market, timing is everything, and the past year has been a great example of that when it comes to so many potential growth names out there. Take On Holdings, which has had the makings of a big winner in the retail field (which is seeing more stocks perk up—see more on that topic later in this issue) and looked like it was on its way to glory a year ago, but shares then got hit and been grinding sideways for months. Now, though, ONON is setting up, and the story remains outstanding: The firm is known for its comfortable and lightweight sneakers that actually have some design advantages over the competition (softer landing and more spring when running), and the main appeal for investors is expansion both product-wise and geographically—on the product front, it long ago moved into the tennis area and is expanding its offerings for running, outdoor/hiking, training and lifestyle while also trying out kids offerings and even apparel; for end markets, there’s optimism that China will be huge as the growing middle class there snap up fashionable (and useful) western items. To be fair, the breakneck growth pace of recent quarters (sales up 58% and 62% in Q2 and Q3 of last year) is likely to slow, but most analysts see a sustainable 25%-plus top-line rate for many years, while early indications are that the top brass believes EBITDA margins will come in at 18% or higher this year (up from a recent outlook for 15% margins in 2023—i.e., cash flow should continue to expand faster than sales). Given the firm’s relatively low mindshare out there, we think the sky’s the limit if management pulls the right product and marketing levers going forward. As mentioned above, the stock has been in a very wide range for the past year but has lately moved up toward resistance –we’ll be watching the firm’s upcoming quarterly report very closely (due March 12), with a powerful gap up possibly marking a turning point in investor perception.

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Hims and Hers Health (HIMS 14)—While most of the world has gone digital, the vast majority of the medical field (for better or worse) is still done face to face, even for routine matters. To us, that’s really where Hims & Hers Health’s story shines: The firm has effectively created a successful telehealth operation where millions of people can get select health-related prescription (generic) medications at a low out-of-pocket cost for a variety of health areas, ranging from hair loss, ED and dermatology to birth control, mental health (anxiety and depression) and even weight loss, all of which are all giant markets; business-wise, the fact that users sign up for deliveries on a subscription basis (read: recurring revenue) is a plus. Moreover, Hims isn’t just a glorified wholesaler: The company offers access to tons of board-certified physicians as well as nurse practitioners (more than 650 in all) that act quickly (usually less than 24 hours from visit to treatment submission) and, increasingly, can formulate personalized treatments. Indeed, across the entire platform, 30% of all subscribers are using personalized offerings, which makes them much “stickier,” and that figure is much, much higher for newer offerings; 75% of female dermatology users have personalized products, while for weight loss, which is very new, it’s near 100%! That’s one reason why the top brass thinks three newer offerings (these two just mentioned plus mental health) can each bring in $100 million in revenue in 2025! Indeed, to this point, the uptake has been superb as the firm takes massive share among some small competitors—Hims ended 2023 with 1.5 million subscribers (up 48%), which drove a 47% gain in revenue (consistently $50-plus per subscriber, per month) in Q4 while EBITDA has been positive and growing five quarters in a row. Just as impressive to us is the underlying business: EBITDA margins are already 8% here and headed much higher, and on average, the cost it takes to acquire a new customer is paid back (at least in gross margin dollars) in a matter of months, while 85% of users re-up their subscriptions. Management believes the train will keep rolling in 2024 (revenues up 36%, EBITDA doubling), and the lower-priced stock exploded higher on the news. To be clear, HIMS is a hot potato that could use more liquidity ($45 million or so of trading volume per day) and sponsorship (296 funds own shares), but we think this is a huge idea.

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Arm Holdings (ARM 140)—Arm Holdings may be the ultimate technology supplier to the chip sector—for many years the firm’s chipmaking intellectual property has been the key to high-end semiconductor production; in its own words, Arm “licenses the instruction sets for modern chips to partners, who then make chips with customizations for their unique applications.” The company’s chip framework is so ubiquitous (7.7 billion chipsets using Arm were shipped in Q4!) that nearly every smartphone uses chips based on their technology, for instance, which was great during the industry’s growth wave … but held down results in 2022 and 2023 as the entire chip sector (for smartphones and many other end uses) struggled. Looking ahead, though, there are some big catalysts—one, of course, is AI, with Nvidia, Google and others already using Arm’s technology in their offerings; another is Arm’s latest architecture (dubbed Armv9), which is just starting to be adopted (15% of royalty revenue in Q4, up from 10% the prior quarter) and has double the royalty rates of the prior generation; and then there’s the fact that Arm is gaining share in faster-growing areas like cloud servers and automotive. You could dive into many more details, but the big idea here is that, if the chip sector is starting a multi-year boom, Arm should be one of the foundational pieces of it, with surging sales and earnings for a long time to come. So far, the results have been solid but not amazing (Q4 sales up 14%, earnings up 32%), though it was notable that remaining performance obligations (all the money owed to it under contract going forward) lifted 38%, and management’s discussion of AI trends caused the stock to go vertical in early February—almost meme-like, in fact, so we weren’t too interested in it for a time. However, it’s been a month since then, and ARM has been under control; it’s very volatile, but the past few weeks have been far more resilient than we would have expected. It’s not a high-odds entry quite yet, but another couple of weeks of quiet trading would be interesting.

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Strength Begets Strength

It’s been four months since the market got going, which as we’ve written a few times, tends to lead to some indigestion even in very strong environments. That said, the scale of the move since then has been huge—over four calendar months, the S&P 500 is up more than 20%, which in and of itself is both rare and, as the title of this section suggests, usually leads to higher prices. And it’s even more convincing when looking at times the market showed such strength when coming out of a big downturn or dull period.

Since 1970, and taking out repeat signals (those that occur within a couple of months of each other), there have been only six prior times when (a) the S&P 500 gained at least 20% over four calendar months, and (b) the upmove began with the index below its 12-month moving average. Encouragingly, all of them were at the start of new bull markets: January 1975, October 1982, February 1991, December 1998, June 2009 and July 2020. The raw numbers for the gains in the major index (average rally of 15% six months later and 22% a year later) are excellent, but knowing history, the more enticing part is the action of leading stocks, many of which were just kicking off big-picture advances at these times.

That lines up with what we continue to see on the sentiment front: When it comes to institutions (the Bank of America survey, shown here), their overall bullishness is, at best, approaching average for the past 20 years, while excitement among individual investors (according to the Schwab Trading Activity Index; the blue line in the second chart below) is still near multi-year lows.

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All this backs up our thought that, near term, some air pockets in extended stocks are possible—but longer term, it’s important to be open to the possibility that the market and many (not all, but many) leaders can go nicely higher over time. Thus, pick your spots and keep your feet on the ground, but be sure not to take off your optimist’s hat.

Retail’s Time to Shine?

While leading stocks have been terrific in recent months, the vast majority have come from the tech space, with AI-bolstered chips and networking, along with software and (until recently) cybersecurity leading the way. Meanwhile, leaders outside of those fields (like, say, Uber) have been relatively few and far between.

But now we’re seeing one of our favorite growth areas begin to flex its muscle: Retail, and it includes everything from newer consumer product companies to traditional cookie-cutter outfits that often have the rapid and reliable growth big investors pine for. Indeed, we’re starting a position in Cava Group (CAVA) tonight, but there are plenty more retail-related names perking up.

Celsius (CELH) is a name we owned for a time, but it cracked in the fall and didn’t get going with the market late last year—in fact, it really didn’t get off its knees until February of this year. But now, after earnings, the stock is back in gear, with a huge-volume romp to new highs. While the firm’s energy drinks aren’t new, they are unique and still have a relatively small share of the overall market (11% to 12%, and that doesn’t include fast-growing areas like foodservice and club locations), and the next big growth wave could come from the firm’s move internationally: It entered Canada in mid-January with the help of partner Pepsi, and after inking a deal with a distribution partner, is set to gradually ramp in the U.K. and Ireland in Q2, with more coming later this year.

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Then there’s Freshpet (FRPT), which doesn’t sound exciting at first glance (pet food!), but it has a terrific growth story—it’s the leading provider of fresh pet food (mostly for dogs), and after a couple of years of heavy investments, price hikes and the like, it’s starting to reap the benefits: In Q4, sales rose 30% while EBITDA crushed expectations, leading to a better-than-expected 2024 forecast (sales up 24%, EBITDA up 57%) and adding credibility to management’s longer-term outlook (EBITDA up five-fold from 2023 to 2027!). The stock was super tight for weeks heading into its report, then catapulted to new highs last week before tightening up again in recent days.

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There are also two names we wrote about earlier in this issue: On Holding (ONON), a high-end footwear outfit that’s broadening out into new products and has something of a lifestyle/fashion glint to it; and Hims & Hers Health (HIMS), which is a small stock ($3 billion market cap) but decent-sized firm (more than $800 million in revenue) that’s making it easy to get a variety of cheap prescriptions online.

We’re intrigued—partly because a rotation into other growth-y groups would be healthy for the market (especially if some money continues to come out of mega-cap names like Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG)), and partly because retail itself has a very long history of launching big winners. We have a couple of these names on our watch list.

Cabot Market Timing Indicators

If you look at what’s actually happening, it’s hard to throw much shade at the market, as the trends of the indexes and leading stocks are up while the broad market is healthy. Thus, we’re still bullish—but with lots of stocks extended in both price and time, and with more churning action seen among some names, we still think it’s best to be selective on the buy side and look for stocks that have emerged more recently.

Cabot Trend Lines: Bullish
It’s been nearly 14 months since our Cabot Trend Lines turned bullish back in January 2023, and of course, the longer-term trend remains firmly up today—as of this morning, the S&P 500 (by 11%) and Nasdaq (by 12%) were still miles above their respective 35-week moving averages. A correction will come at some point, but the odds continue to favor higher prices in the months ahead.

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Cabot Tides: Bullish
Our Cabot Tides also remain positive, with all five indexes trading nicely above their lower (50-day) moving averages—and we’re even seeing a bit of broadening out in the major indexes: The S&P 400 MidCap, shown here, has glided up and out to new highs, which is a plus. As has been the case for a while, both the intermediate- and longer-term trends are pointed up, which is a reason to remain mostly bullish.

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Two-Second Indicator: Positive
Our Two-Second Indicator rounds out the bullish vibes, as it too is still giving off positive readings, with only four plus-40 readings during February. As always, things can change, and if we start to see a string of worrisome readings it could be a sign that the sellers are finally stepping up. But today, broad selling pressures remain muted.

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The next Cabot Growth Investor issue will be published on March 21, 2024.


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A growth stock and market timing expert, Michael Cintolo is Chief Investment Strategist of Cabot Wealth Network and Chief Analyst of Cabot Growth Investor and Cabot Top Ten Trader. Since joining Cabot in 1999, Mike has uncovered exceptional growth stocks and helped to create new tools and rules for buying and selling stocks. Perhaps most notable was his development of the proprietary trend-following market timing system, Cabot Tides, which has helped Cabot place among the top handful of market-timing newsletters numerous times.