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Top Ten Trader
Discover the Market’s Strongest Stocks

March 3, 2023

It’s been a relatively quiet week in the market, with the major indexes mostly up in the 1% range after this morning’s open, though the action has been news-driven as every economic report and Fed speech is picked over for clues to the path of interest rates.

Not surprisingly, from a top-down perspective, not a lot has changed with the evidence—we’re generally in a “positive but close” situation with most every indicator and measure. The intermediate-term trend, for instance, is positive … but a couple major indexes are at/below key levels while the other three we track aren’t far away.

Same thing with the broad market—the number of new lows was stubbornly resilient for the first three weeks of the pullback (a good sign the bottom wasn’t dropping out) … but now we’ve seen modestly-worrisome readings three of the past five sessions.

That said, at day’s end, everything is still on the positive side of the ledger, which was definitely not the case during month-long retreats last year, while some things (like the underperformance of defensive areas even as the indexes pull in) are encouraging.

Possibly best of all is the action under the surface: It’s hard to quantify, but just running through screens it’s hard not to notice many stocks and sectors acting peppy—yes, some have taken on water, but a bunch have pulled back only grudgingly, and there remain a good number of positive earnings gaps each week, too.

The bottom line is that most of the evidence is still positive, so we’re leaning in that direction—but we’re not leaving our brain at the door, as most of the evidence is also still near key levels. Frankly, a good week or two could have us getting very bullish if stocks get moving, but a few more bad days could have us retrenching further.

Translation: We’re still stuck in the middle somewhat, so we’ll leave our Market Monitor at a level 6 and keep a close eye on things, seeing what comes in the days ahead.

BUY IDEAS

Old Dominion (ODFL) is one of many stocks that really surged in late January on earnings, then bumped downhill with the market on light volume for February—but is now starting to perk up, with a solid-volume rally on Thursday. We’re OK buying some here with a stop near 330.

Uber (UBER) has a similar pattern to ODFL and is starting to bounce as well—if you own some, hang on, but if you don’t, a move above 34.5 would be a good sign that the uptrend could be resuming; buying near there with a stop around 31 is a solid bet.

Some airline stocks have gotten wobbly because of the market, but not United Airlines (UAL), which acts great and is toying with multi-month highs this morning. We’re OK starting a position here (or maybe adding a bit—just a bit—to an existing position) with a stop near 47.

SUGGESTED SELLS

Partial Sells

None this week

Full Sells

ASML Inc. (ASML) – tripped stop on the Tesla news yesterday morning
Box Inc. (BOX) – cracked on earnings
Insulet (PODD) – decent setup into earnings but never clicked after the report
Seagate (STX) – bouncing modestly off the 50-day line after a sloppy decline

SUGGESTED STOPS

Going along with what we see, we don’t have many sells, but we are placing another batch of stops (and tightening some others) should the bears pounce on the market

Academy Sports (ASO) near 51
Airbnb (ABNB) near 115
Autoliv (ALV) near 87
Deere (DE) near 402
Discover Financial (DFS) near 108.5
Dynatrace (DT) near 41
Five Below (FIVE) near 186
Hyatt (H) near 107
Mobileye (MBLY) near 36.5
New Relic (NEWR) near 70
Old Dominion (ODFL) near 330
Penumbra (PEN) near 239
Pulte (PHM) near 52
Reliance Steel (RS) near 229
Revance Therapeutics (RVNC) near 29
Smartsheet (SMAR) near 41.5
Southern Copper (SCCO) near 69.5
Steel Dynamics (STLD) near 117.5
Toll Brothers (TOL) near 56
United Airlines (UAL) near 47

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.