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Last week’s U.S.-China trade truce fell flat but the tone of emerging market and international stocks remains positive. The EEM began 2019 at 40 and moved nicely to 44 in late spring before coming back to 39 in late summer. Since then, EEM has been in a choppy uptrend to reach 42. Today we move south of the border for a new recommendation in a strong uptrend and way off its high.

A famed economist just outlined his “Roaring 2020s” scenario for the U.S. economy, and this stock market trend is powering it.

Artificial intelligence has been the talk of Wall Street for this entire bull market, but there’s one AI infrastructure investment the market is ignoring.

“International Data Corp (IDC), a market research firm that tracks trends in information technology (IT), estimates that the amount of data created and replicated has grown nine times over the past five years and will surpass 1.8 zettabytes in 2011. One zettabyte is equivalent to the information stored on about...

For my stock pick today, I’m recommending a Chinese web portal called NetEase (NTES).

Current Market Outlook


The major indexes have done a decent job of holding above the August 24 lows, and a few stocks and sectors have pushed to new high ground. In the short term, we still think further upside testing is possible, especially if the Federal Reserve issues some reassuring words later this week. However, it’s going to take more than just another couple of good days to turn the market’s trends back up—right now, all of the major indexes (and the vast majority of stocks) are still buried beneath resistance and are trading below key moving averages. Thus, we’re sticking with our defensive stance—the onus is clearly on the bulls to re-take control.

This week’s list has another batch of potential leaders; there’s not many defensive stocks making the list, which is encouraging. Our Top Pick is Royal Caribbean (RCL), a big-cap leisure stock that has a strong chart and big earnings estimates.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (WCG)	271.83	92-96	86-88
Virgin Airlines (VA)	0.00	33-35	30-31
Tempur Sealy (TPX)	85.53	74-77	68-69
RH Inc. (RH)	252.93	97-99	85-86
Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL)	0.00	90-93	85-86
Neurocrine Biosciences (NBIX)	123.40	51-54	46-48
Martin Marietta Materials (MLM)	261.52	170-174	158-160
Clovis Oncology (CLVS)	0.00	98-102	86-88
Amazon.com (AMZN)	2.00	510-530	460-470
Abiomed (ABMD)	0.00	90-95	85-86

Today’s portfolio changes include one stock joining us with strong earnings growth and a stronger price chart than most stocks during this market correction, and another leaving the portfolio due to frequent downward revisions in earnings estimates.

The stock market will not likely bounce back quickly to its February highs. I’d be completely shocked if any such rebound occurred this month, or even in April. Instead, I expect a significant amount of volatility in the coming days, as buyers and sellers take turns embracing and dumping stocks. Despite the occasional up day in the market, there are many stocks that have not finished falling yet. Most such stocks are companies that will likely be harmed by a pullback in this year’s expected economic growth. After all, when people are quarantined – or just plain staying home and canceling travel and outings – many businesses suffer, not the least of which are travel, restaurant and retail companies.



I know that you will hear some friends or stock market pundits imply that the market will rebound quickly. Please, I beg you not to fall for that rosy prognosis. The market fell nearly 13%. That’s a BIG DROP. It’s going to take quite a few months to recover, and the recovery will most likely be precipitated by news that global economies are recovering from the coronavirus-induced lapse in economic output.



That’s not to say that there won’t be buying opportunities. I will continue to point out growth stocks that have somewhat bullish or tradeable price charts. These will be the ones with which you’ll want to “buy low.”

Lastly, take your time investing your cash. Many stocks will be in trading ranges, so watch for opportunities to buy low and sell high within those ranges

Artificial intelligence is everywhere these days, from your email spam filters to customer service chatbots to phone systems, but does it belong in your portfolio? This month, we’ll learn more about the growing use of AI in day-to-day life, how it operates, how companies are leveraging artificial intelligence to manage investments, and whether you should trust these automated tools to make (or help you make) investing decisions.

Explorer stocks are off to a good start in 2026. Alibaba (BABA) shares soared 15.8% this week as it was reported that Alibaba Cloud has captured about 36% of China’s AI cloud market share. Archer Aviation (ACHR) shares followed last week’s 11.5% gain with a 5.8% gain this week as its CEO presented at Bank of America’s Defense and Commercial Aerospace Forum. Alphabet (GOOG) shares gained more than 4% this week as Apple (AAPL) announced that it had selected Gemini to power a more personalized version of its Siri chatbot. And Coeur Mining (CDE) shares were up 7.7% this week following last week’s 8% gain.

Now we look to a region that is in the headlines, performed well last year, and is likely to be at the center of attention this year.

Believe it or not, millennials have now surpassed Baby Boomers as America’s most populous living generation. Many of those millennials are starting families - and that’s good news for the baby market.

The stock market continues to exhibit a willingness to rise in the near term. I’m seeing constructive price chart patterns on both the S&P 500 index and on many individual stocks.

Capital market, economic, geo-political and societal changes are happening quickly.

The market had yet another mostly quiet, mostly positive week, and the vast majority of the top-down evidence is still in good or great shape. That said, there’s no doubt things are a bit extended in time and that more stocks and sectors are beginning to lag, which is one reason we’re not flooring the accelerator. Another is the fact that earnings season really picks up this week—35%-plus of the S&P 500, along with more growth leaders, are reporting, which will obviously be key. Don’t get us wrong, we’re overall bullish, but near term we’re picking our spots. We’ll leave our Market Monitor at a level 7.

This week’s list has a wide variety of names, with many types of names and setups. This week’s Top Pick has earnings this week, but after a huge-volume ramp, shares have dipped on low volume to the 25-day line—we’re OK with a small buy here or on dips with a loose stop.

I’ve been watching for opportunities to add companies to the Cabot Undervalued Stocks Advisor portfolios that are outside the financial, energy and construction sectors and industries. Today, I’m adding an aerospace manufacturer to the Growth Portfolio as a Strong Buy.

Happy New Year to everyone and wishing you all the best investing in 2025.

Let’s keep in mind this year the merit in legendary global investor Sir John Templeton’s sage advice:

“Diversify. In stocks and bonds, as in much else, there is safety in numbers.”

With this in mind, I see four big trends out there that offer us the opportunity to take a contrarian approach to make some money and lower risk.

As we head into the end of the year, markets have paused though are still bullish. A little bit of worry is a sign of a healthy market and some of the pullback is no doubt taking profits for tax reasons.

The budget showdown in Washington, which needs to be settled by Saturday, is not helpful.

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter point yesterday and in a preemptive move, suggested only two more reductions next year. This is a signal that interest rates will remain somewhat elevated as inflation that has come down significantly remains a stubborn trend.

It was a relatively quiet week for Explorer stocks as a financial media frenzy focused an unprecedented amount of attention on the expected financials of one stock – Nvidia (NDVA).

Nvidia has quickly become the third most valuable company in the United States.

As of last Friday, about 30% of the S&P 500’s gain for the year was due to Nvidia, according to an S&P analyst.

Finding stocks that are hitting new all-time highs is an easy way to spot potential leaders of the next leg of the bull market, and these three large-cap stocks are doing just that.