By Michael Cintolo, Vice President of Investments, Cabot Wealth Network
Guardant Health (GH)
Guardant Health has been hard to get a handle on, as the stock is subject to sharp dips and rallies, but the story has always been solid, and new product launches point toward great things ahead. The firm’s base Guardant 360 has put the firm near the top of the liquid biopsy industry for years, analyzing DNA from a couple tubes of blood to allow patients with advanced solid tumors to better guide treatment options. That’s still a growing business and doing well, but the excitement here comes from two new offerings. The first is dubbed Shield, and it’s been approved by the FDA as the first blood test for primary colorectal cancer screening, which could be giant given the ease of use versus other screening methods (often stool-based), not to mention the dreaded colonoscopies. Moreover, Shield is approved by Medicare, and Guardant just got a special designation for Shield from the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid, which means the firm will get reimbursed by around $1,500 per test for Sheild this year, though the next two years of reimbursements will be dependent on what the private sector will bear. Then there’s Reveal, another blood test from Guardant that’s used for colorectal cancer screening, but this time for disease recurrence monitoring; it received Medicare coverage earlier this year. (Longer term, there’s huge potential upside for blood tests for cancer recurrence, with just a tiny fraction of those who could benefit being tested.) Revenue growth has been strong here, though to be fair, the top brass’ 2025 outlook was just OK, with the top line expected to rise around 20% on an adjusted basis (taking out some one-time revenue recognition last year), though that could easily prove conservative if Shield ramps. The stock has been very resilient during the market’s mess, holding well above its 200-day line (better than 85% of stocks) and its early March low (while the major indexes slipped 10% below theirs). Obviously, there will be volatility, but GH looks ready to move if/when the market does.
Insulet (PODD)
Competition has always been intense in the diabetes field, especially when it comes to automated insulin delivery (insulin pumps), but in recent quarters, there’s little question that Insulet, which has an outstanding long-term track record (nine straight years of 20%-plus sales growth!), is taking the lead. The firm has a few pumps on the market that have a large user base (half a million active users), but it’s the Omnipod 5 offering (365,000 users) that’s the big draw, making the company the #1 most prescribed pump in the U.S. and #1 in Europe, too. Omnipod 5 is the first tubeless, waterproof system in the U.S., offers a choice of sensor integration (three options now, not just Dexcom), can be controlled through an app on your phone and, of course, leads to great results (much more time within the normal range of insulin). For investors, the best part is that the pump is the only automated insulin delivery system that’s FDA approved for both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetics (Type 2 approval was just received last August) and is widely available (including at 46,000 U.S. pharmacies), all of which means the runway of growth here should be enormous: The firm thinks it’s now playing in a U.S. market of 7.2 million patients (about double that if you include international; Insulet launched in five European markets in January with three more international launches occurring a few weeks ago), yet only 1.2 million or so are using any sort of pump at all—and for Type 2s, that ratio is far lower. Growth here has slowed a touch as Insulet has gotten bigger, but the top brass still sees revenues lifting 18% or so (including 19% growth in Omnipod sales), while operating income should lift 30% or so as margins expand. Obviously, a lot will depend on execution, but Insulet should get much bigger over time. The stock dipped fairly sharply in March when the market first fell apart, but PODD bounced nicely after that and refused to give up the ghost during the early-April mini-crash, holding its prior low and the 200-day line. PODD clearly wants higher if the market allows for it.
Marex (MRX)
U.K.-based financial services company Marex counts among its clients some of the world’s biggest commodity producers, banks, hedge funds and asset managers, also offering services to consumers, brokerage houses and professional traders. The company primarily caters to institutional clients, providing access to the world’s major commodity markets, and offers a range of services, including market making, execution, clearing and bespoke hedging and investment solutions. For individuals, the firm provides tailored investment solutions through its Hedging Solutions division, including customized over-the-counter (OTC) derivative products that allow individuals to manage exposures in markets like agriculture, dairy, metals, energy and environmental areas. Brokerage firms like Marex tend to see business pick up when market volatility is exceptionally high, which partly accounts for the stock’s recent resilience. But the company’s strategic initiatives and financial performance are other factors supporting the sanguine outlook, positioning Marex to benefit from the dynamic market environment. Part of the reason for its recent growth is due to the firm’s strengthening client collateral balances in the wake of market turbulence, though the firm has also grown the old-fashioned way by expanding its client figures, too. In what is typically the slowest quarter of the year for Marex, the firm reported a strong Q4 performance in a “supportive” market backdrop, led by strength in its securities segment, which is benefiting from the integration of TD Cowen’s prime services business. Client activity levels remained “robust,” as average daily balances grew to $15.5 billion in the quarter (up 42% from a year ago; balances rose each quarter of 2024), while sales in each of its segments lifted nicely from a year ago. And those trends continued in Q1, with Marex’s Investor Day last week revealing a solid 25%-ish gain in revenue from a year ago, while pre-tax profit looks to be up 17% from Q4. Going forward, management is looking at further M&A, and while Wall Street sees modest growth this year, that could prove too conservative given all the uncertainties out there (leading to more volatility). Amazingly, while shares did correct into early March after a persistent uptrend, they retested their highs a couple of weeks later and held near there during the early-April dip—a great sign that big investors are accumulating.
Rubrik (RBRK)
We’re always scanning the market for signs of resilience, as most that hold up well during a bad market will lead coming out the other end. In pole position for future leadership is Rubrik, a name we first dug into last fall and remain enthusiastic about. Rubrik is a cybersecurity play, but it’s emphasis is different than traditional protection-based players: While protection is obviously part of the firm’s platform, it’s also has been built from the ground up for what’s being called cyber resilience, which combines protection as well as cyber recovery efforts to ensure businesses have a short recovery time objective (how soon they get back up and running after a cyberattack), often within hours, which dramatically caps the cost and downside of any breaches. (A big part of this theme is that, despite advances in protection, cyberattacks are becoming more frequent, so many are becoming resigned to some breaches.) Rubrik says it offers the fastest cyber recovery thanks to what it dubs its AI-powered, zero-trust architecture, while also offering clients a single system that can manage all of their data and security controls across all workloads and cloud environments. Importantly, Rubrik is really a different cat in the industry, with many protection players like CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks and Okta partnering with this company to add to their own offerings. In essence, Rubrik is a data security and recovery player, keeping data safe, spotting risks and threats sooner and recovering data quickly and securely if and when a breach occurs. The idea has been a hit and growth has been superb, with revenue growth accelerating (up 35%, 43% and 47% the past three quarters), with current clients buying more (same-customer revenue growth rate of 20%-plus) and with free cash flow in the black and growing. As for the stock, it “only” got going in October, so we don’t consider it late stage, and while it’s been up and down of late, it held above its 200-day line and held its March low recently, which is a solid sign this correction is normal (not a major top) and a fresh upleg will development in the market’s next sustained rally phase.
TG Therapeutics (TGTX)
TG Therapeutics is a name we’ve watched on and off for a couple of years, and after some mostly positive (but very hectic) action, the stock seems to be growing up as its story and potential become more certain. The company’s claim to fame is Briumvi, which is a treatment for relapsing multiple sclerosis, and it does so by blocking CD20 protein (which can cause inflammation and make symptoms worse), making it one of three drugs on the market (the others are sold by Roche and Novartis). These three have shown huge improvements in treating the disease, but it’s looking like Briumvi may be the best out there for a few reasons: First, of course, the results have been excellent (a recent follow-up showed that five years into treatment, 92% of patients showed no disease progression), and the second is ease of delivery; after an initial couple of doses, Briumvi is delivered via an IV every 24 weeks over an hour, which is half the time or less of one competing CD20 drug—and TG is starting trials to allow patients to inject themselves at home with one shot every couple of months (again, less than half as frequent as the competition), with data likely later this year. In the meantime, Briumvi is clearly taking a lot of market share: The product hit the market in late 2023 and ramped to $104 million in Q4, up 160% from a year ago, and the top brass sees sales moving up another 65% or so in 2025, which is likely conservative given their history of lowballing guidance. (One analyst sees peak annual sales north of $3 billion down the road.) Meanwhile, the bottom line is in the black and Wall Street sees it accelerating going ahead ($1 per share this year, nearly $2 in 2026). To be fair, this is a one-drug and, at this time, one-indication company, which of course makes it riskier—but TGTX built a great-looking base from November through February and actually had a good run into late-March before finally pulling back some with the market. Even so, it’s held above its 50-day line (better than 95% of stocks), which is a clear sign of relative strength.
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About Cabot Wealth Network
This report is published by Cabot Wealth Network which was founded in 1970 by Carlton Lutts, a disciplined investor with an engineering mind who developed a proprietary stock picking system using technical and fundamental analyses.
Since then Cabot Wealth Network, headquartered in Salem, Massachusetts, has grown to become one of the largest and most-trusted independent investment advisory publishers in the country, serving hundreds of thousands of investors across North America and around the world.
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