Happy New Year! While COVID continued to wreak havoc in our personal and work lives in 2021, we cannot complain about the markets!
Last year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 18.7%; the S&P 500 climbed 26.9%; and the Nasdaq rose 21.4%. Not bad for an economy that continued to recover from the early stages of the coronavirus.
And the economy continues to strengthen, supported by improvements in manufacturing, housing, and unemployment. The unemployment rate for December dropped to 3.2%, the lowest it has been since February 2020.
We are still living with COVID, and as I wrote in the latest Cabot Money Club magazine, inflation is a concern going forward. Just this past week, long-term mortgage rates rose to 3.4%. While any rise in those rates can cause homeowners some grief, the truth is that is still a pretty low mortgage rate. Consequently, I don’t think a steady rise will the derail housing market.
Keep reading to find out more.
Issue 849
Happy New Year!
While COVID continued to wreak havoc in our personal and work lives in 2021, we cannot complain about the markets!
Last year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 18.7%; the S&P 500 climbed 26.9%; and the Nasdaq rose 21.4%. Not bad for an economy that continued to recover from the early stages of the coronavirus.
And the economy continues to strengthen, supported by improvements in manufacturing, housing, and unemployment. The unemployment rate for December dropped to 3.2%, the lowest it has been since February 2020.
We are still living with COVID, and as I wrote in my latest Financial Freedom magazine https://financialfreedomfederation.cabotwealth.com/magazine/, inflation is a concern going forward. Just this past week, long-term mortgage rates rose to 3.4%. While any rise in those rates can cause homeowners some grief, the truth is that is still a pretty low mortgage rate. Consequently, I don’t think a steady rise will the derail housing market.
Going forward, we remain bullish but cautious on the markets. Tech stocks have suffered lately, but it was heartening to see the market bounce back off of earlier losses on Monday. You can expect more volatility as we enter the new year.
As I said, we have lots to be thankful for in the 2021 markets. And while the broad markets had a great year, our contributors had a better one!
Our average gain for our Top Picks selections was 40%, with the Top 5 rising an average 301%!
Congratulations to William Velmer of S.A. Advisory, for bringing home the gold with his pick of Predictive Technology Group (PRED), which gained a whopping 580%! Second place went to Joseph Cotton of Cotton’s Technically Speaking, for his recommendation of Cassava Sciences (SAVA),which rose 512.34%. And third place goes to Chris Temple, of The National Investor, for Frontier Lithium (LITOF), which gave investors a 230.61% return.
Thank you to all of our contributors for a fabulous year!
For our 2022 Top Picks, our contributors gave me a very long list of potential winners. So, let’s get to them!
We begin with Top Picks – Growth, where you’ll see ideas from the marine, food, cannabis, sports gear, and entertainment arenas. In Top Picks – Growth & Income, our contributors offer recommendations from the payments, diagnostics, auto manufacturing, electrical equipment, cannabis, batteries, and media/education sectors.
Next, our Top Picks – Resources, Energy, & Utilities include stocks from the mining, water supply, fuel cell, oil and gas, and utility industries. Our Top Picks – Technology companies hail from the data storage, 3D, travel, cloud, semiconductor, and telecom sectors.
In Top Picks – Financials, you’ll find ideas from the investment bank, payments, and brokerage companies. Our Top Picks – Healthcare stocks include big pharma and biotech businesses. And in Top Picks – Low-Priced Stocks, our contributors offer ideas from the lithium, biotech aircraft manufacturing sectors.
We also include a few Top Picks – High Yield & Preferred Stocks for those looking to add cash flow. These include stocks from the consumer products, banking, shipping, and communication arenas.
In our Top Picks – Funds & ETFs, we offer several ideas in the commodities, IPOs, silver, energy, and real estate.
Lastly, we also include a few non-Top Pick stocks in the building retail, financials, healthcare technology, and preferred stocks categories.
As always, please don’t hesitate to email me with your feedback and questions. My address is nancy@cabotwealth.com.