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Life insurance stocks aren’t glamorous. But they’ve been steady, reliable risers these last three months, and remain undervalued. These five stand out.

Complacency is creeping back into the market, but we remain vigilant as the earnings season cranks up into full gear. That said, the broad backdrop is still in good shape as evidenced by some of our favorite indicators. We’ve also done some pruning recently (mostly among laggards) as the market’s multi-month run is becoming a bit extended. But we still see opportunities, especially in areas investors have overlooked. All told, near-term wobbles are possible, but we remain bullish as the odds favor the new uptrend bringing us higher over time. We’ll keep our Market Monitor at a level 7, but we’ll stay nimble as earnings come in.

This week’s list contains some formerly out-of-favor stocks that are now in much better shape as industry trends improve. Our Top Pick is an engineering firm that shows all the classic signs of being under strong institutional accumulation. We’re OK using dips to enter.

In this week’s video, Mike is still seeing a ton of potential buying setups in a variety of industries.

Current Market Outlook


The market is coming off another very solid week, with the major indexes tagging higher highs on solid volume and the early returns from earnings season generally positive. It is fair to say the advance is becoming more selective, with some factors (bad earnings, rising interest rates, falling U.S. dollar) causing certain areas to stall out. Overall, we remain bullish, especially in the longer-term, as this recent unusual strength has historically portended good things down the road. In the near-term, though, you should be taking things on a stock-by-stock basis, ditching stocks that break their intermediate-term uptrends and looking for buying opportunities either on shakeouts (in established leaders) or earnings blastoffs.

This week’s list has everything from turnarounds to speculations to recent earnings winners—there’s a lot to like here. Our Top Pick is AbbVie (ABBV), which has been a steady liquid leader in the biotech space and just popped on earnings.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
AbbVie Inc. (ABBV)	93.53	117-123	106-109
G-III Apparel (GIII)	45.25	37-39	33.5-35
Helmerich & Payne (HP)	63.68	70-74	63-65
Ligand Pharmaceuticals (LGND)	267.14	161-167	147-151
Neurocrine Biosciences (NBIX)	123.40	86-90	77-79
Shopify (SHOP)	585.00	122-128	108-112
Spectrum Pharmaceuticals (SPPI)	19.31	21.5-23	19-20
Sprouts Farmers Market (SFM)	19.00	26-28	24-25
Varian Medical (VAR)	118.33	122-126	113-115
Weibo (WB)	98.16	128-134	115-118

Current Market Outlook


Along with heaps of snow in the Northeast, February has brought a marked change in character for the general market—the major indexes have moved into new high ground (led by the growth-oriented Nasdaq Composite), and individual stocks have done the same. In the short-term, we have seen a little giddiness take hold, which could easily lead to some potholes and shakeouts. But there’s no doubt that the intermediate-term evidence remains bullish, so we believe dips will present good buying opportunities.

This week’s list has an interesting mix of volatile glamour stocks and bigger-cap companies that are under accumulation. There are many attractive charts, but our Top Pick is CommScope (COMM), a telecom play that’s super-strong after a recent, game-changing acquisition.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Zillow (Z)	76.64	115-122	106-109
VeriSign (VRSN)	190.71	62-64	58.5-59.5
Vipshop Holdings (VIPS)	14.25	24.5-26	22.5-23.5
Ultimate Software (ULTI)	0.00	162-166	152-154
Sony Corp. (SNE)	0.00	25.5-27	23-24
Molina Healthcare (MOH)	0.00	60-63	55-57
Marathon Petroleum Corporation (MPC)	0.00	100-104	92-93
FireEye (FEYE)	0.00	41-43.5	37.5-38
CommScope (COMM)	0.00	28.5-30.5	26-26.5
Berry Global (BERY)	64.22	33-34.5	30-31

The market’s evidence improved under the surface for much of February and early March, with the strong rally last month only adding to the good vibes. A pullback wasn’t unexpected, but so far, the way things have retreated hasn’t been encouraging, with a lot of potential leaders taking it on the chin and our nascent Cabot Tides buy signal back on the fence.


To be fair, the decline hasn’t cracked the uptrend in the market or most stocks, and a couple of good days would do wonders. But with few stocks really making headway, we advise going slow, adhering to your stops and holding a good chunk of cash.


Earlier this week, we sold one of our recent buys, and while we have no new sells tonight, we are placing a couple more names on Hold and have relatively tight stops in place in case the selling continues.

Despite the Federal Reserve’s decision to sit tight on interest rates yesterday and rising concerns about upside inflation risk in the mid-term, the broad market continues to act well on hopes of tariff de-escalation.

So far, those hopes are well-founded.

Early last week was fairly quiet as stocks went mostly nowhere until anxiety ramped higher on Friday on tensions rising in the Middle East. By week’s end the S&P 500 had fallen 0.4%, the Dow had lost 1.3%, and the Nasdaq declined by 0.6%.

Early last week was fairly quiet as stocks went mostly nowhere until anxiety ramped higher on Friday on tensions rising in the Middle East. By week’s end the S&P 500 had fallen 0.4%, the Dow had lost 1.3%, and the Nasdaq declined by 0.6%.

It’s been an interesting week for the market, with the biggest piece of headline news being Wednesday’s worse-than-expected inflation report, which roiled Treasuries (yields up 12 to 18 basis points on the week). Beyond inflation, there have been rumblings of late (including this morning) that Iran is set to attack Israel in some way or another, which is causing some angst this morning.


Despite those headwinds and uncertainties, the action of stocks hasn’t been awful—most indexes are down on the week (led by the broad market), but the losses haven’t been huge, with the Nasdaq actually up a smidge for the week after today’s open.

Today I am fulfilling your dreams and profiling a company that specializes in tax collection. Three cheers for taxes!
Seriously, nobody likes taxes. With the exception of state treasurers. Taxes are just one of those parts of life that you’d prefer to ignore. But if you’re a retailer you can’t do that. In fact, retailers across the U.S. - and the world for that matter – have to devote more and more attention to sales tax compliance.
That’s the big picture trend powering one company’s growth. All the details are inside this month’s Issue. And I promise, it’s going to be more interesting than you think!

Before I dive into this morning’s Cabot Options Trader Weekly Update, I wanted to bring to your attention that the Mintz family will be traveling to Europe this Wednesday through the following Wednesday.

And while I will be offline in terms of trading, answering questions, and the Daily Order Flow list, I will keep a distant eye on our positions and if we need to act, I will send instructions.

Before I dive into this morning’s Cabot Options Trader Weekly Update, I wanted to bring to your attention that the Mintz family will be traveling to Europe this Wednesday through the following Wednesday.

And while I will be offline in terms of trading, answering questions, and the Daily Order Flow list, I will keep a distant eye on our positions and if we need to act, I will send instructions.