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One of the eternal truths of our business is that every day we get to hear from readers who are just starting out as investors.

Alibaba (BABA) shares surged 15.5% this week as the company announced that it had completed a roughly $3.2 billion capital raise. Better yet, Baidu (BIDU) shares jumped a stunning 29% in the stock’s first week as an Explorer recommendation.

But could quantum computing be a bigger investment opportunity than artificial intelligence (AI) as the U.S.-China rivalry escalates?

It was a quiet week for Explorer stocks as mega tech momentum stocks have led a sharp rebound from the lows of April’s tariff-driven market pullback. This has led the broader markets to close near all-time highs.

But this is nothing compared with Spain’s IBEX 35 index, which is up almost 40% year-to-date, crushing the Nasdaq’s anemic 4% gain. Spain is now Europe’s fastest-growing major economy with electricity prices helping manufacturing and logistics. Spain brought in 94 million visitors last year and I was one of them. In 2024 alone, 170,000 people migrated from Latin America to Spain, further propelling growth and productivity.

The S&P 500 and other major indexes finished up yesterday after slightly negative first-quarter economic growth. Not much movement in Explorer stocks this week except Sea Limited (SE), up 11%.

Chinese exports have recently plunged as the psychology of tariffs takes a toll. China relied on exports for about a third of its economic growth last year.

This was a good week for the Explorer portfolio as all our positions advanced, led by NovoCure (NVCR), Sea Limited (SE) and Virgin Galactic (SPCE), which jumped 25% this past week. We now head into the fourth quarter, which may bring some turbulence as the election approaches. We will take what the market gives us but will be on guard. Our emerging markets timer (EEM) is still positive.

Today, we have a new recommendation in emerging markets that we hope will benefit from the biggest shopping day in the world.

There’s plenty of controversy around the practice, but there’s no denying that politicians beat the markets when they trade. Here are three stocks politicians are buying now.

You might not think that flowers are a global business but American Airlines moved 417 tons of flowers from the Netherlands to America for Valentine’s Day.

The Cabot Global Stocks Explorer portfolio is led by our rocketing Virgin Galactic (SPCE), which has zoomed from 11 to 37 in a wink of the eye. Meanwhile, Sea Limited (SE) and Luckin Coffee (LK) were both up 10% this past week even as our emerging markets timer (EEM) moved to neutral.

Concerns over the impact of coronavirus are deepening as Apple announced revenue will be below expectations. In this issue, we’ll address these concerns, as well as why and how to hedge them, plus I’m putting a European 5G player on my watch list.

The gold-silver ratio is an intimate relationship. It indicates how many ounces of silver are needed to buy one ounce of gold. In the last century, this ratio reached its lowest point at just under 15:1 at the end of 1979 and peaked at over 110:1 during the COVID crisis.

This year, we passed the 100:1 mark for only the fourth time in a hundred years – a strong signal that silver may be underpriced.

So today, we add an aggressive silver play to the Explorer portfolio as a bet that it will close the gap on gold.

Change is constant and inevitable, but one thing that hasn’t changed for the past three centuries: America’s love affair with coffee. Coffee is a commodity that has been prized since the 18^th century in America. Many believe it is the fuel that drives America’s economic engine.

So today, we add a fast-growing American coffee company to the Explorer portfolio. It might not be the name you’re expecting...

“Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria.” -Sir John Templeton

Tech stocks and a couple of Explorer stocks are having a tough week, but the rest of the market is calm as investors await Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech on Friday at the central bank powwow in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

After an amazing run higher, growth stocks hit an air pocket this week, with many highfliers coming down and some abnormal action being seen. We haven’t exactly floored the accelerator during the past few weeks, and we took our cues from individual stocks, paring back this week and leaving us with a good-sized cash position. That said, we’re not making any major market call--the trends remain up, and many growth stocks are acting OK--so while we want to see how growth reacts from here, we’re flexible and could put some money back to work soon if key names stabilize.

Inflation appears stuck at a much higher level than acceptable for the Federal Reserve so lower interest rates are on pause. Gold is one beneficiary.

This means that some high-flyer tech stocks may be vulnerable. Meanwhile, Japanese stocks remain near all-time highs.

Fortunately, we have exposure to both gold and Japan in the Explorer portfolio, and today we add to that exposure.

Want to build a buy-and-hold stock portfolio for the next two years? There’s almost never been an easier time to do it. Here’s how.

Despite a Chinese economy that has grown three times faster than America’s every year over the past three decades, it has been a bit of a challenge to consistently make money in Chinese stocks.