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The markets are demonstrating impressive resiliency in the face of the coronavirus. You can’t fight the market but I remain a bit more guarded since this disruption will have to hit profits down the road for some companies.

This week is a reminder that markets don’t always go up. The big surprise was that it took so long for global markets to wake up to the threat.

So with the Detroit auto show starting this week and running through January 25, I’ve been paying attention to what might be coming down the line. No surprise, there are lots of electric and hybrid concept cars on display, including the Chevy Volt. And yes, the Volt is still scheduled to go into production--at the end of 2010, about 23 months from now. That’s a long ways off, especially when you realize that a full two years have passed already since the car was first announced.

Why doesn’t economic news affect my market outlook? The reason for that can be explained in my favorite quote, which is carved on the mantel above the fireplace at Cabot: “Markets are never wrong; opinions are.” The infamous trader Jesse Livermore is responsible for this gem. Far too many investors fail to leave their egos and opinions at the door and this is the #1 reason most investors lose money, or at best produce lackluster returns.

Bailout, bailout, bailout ... it’s all bailout all the time these days, with every news organization (financial or otherwise) reporting rumors and innuendos from every politician regarding the government’s bailout package. Of course, the plan hit the fan in the House of Representatives on Monday afternoon, though the Senate passed it last night. The House is expected to vote again by Friday.

My pick, by the way, is New Oriental Education (EDU), which is thriving by teaching English to Chinese students of all ages, and also teaching test preparation courses. I like it because I think the growth of China will continue at a rapid rate and because I value education highly. Also, the company is fast-growing and very profitable; in the third quarter, revenues grew 50% from the year before while the after-tax profit margin was 43.9% (there’s a strong seasonal component here). And finally, the chart looks good.

For a long time, I’ve had a note to myself saying I should write about witch-hunts. And now, as the clock ticks toward Halloween, is the perfect time to do so. My status as a native and lifelong resident of Salem, Massachusetts means I know a fair amount about the historical kind, and my decades observing and analyzing the behavior of investors, who can act rational as individuals but who combine to form irrational crowds, means I’ve experienced many of the modern kind.

Intel was once a superb investment. If you had bought $10,000 of INTC at the end of 1974, the year Craig Barrett joined the company (three years after the IPO) you would have had about $18.5 million at the stock’s peak in 2000 ... or nearly $4 million today.

This month marks a special time for us at Cabot: The 39th anniversary of the first issue of Cabot Market Letter, our flagship newsletter. In honor of this anniversary, I interviewed Cabot’s publisher and president Timothy Lutts, and Cabot Market Letter’s current steward, Michael Cintolo.

The the U.S. markets have fallen into a correction. Today, I’m answering questions about how to handle it.

Last week, I asked readers what they thought of airlines’ complex pricing schemes. (If you missed the issue, you can still read it here on the website.) Several of you responded with interesting comments, including the ones below. For the most part I don’t have a problem with the myriad and...

Longtime readers will remember that Tesla Motors (TSLA) was one of the market’s top performers back in 2013, zooming to gains of 344% as the company’s Model S sedan earned rave reviews. But the stock has spent much of the past two years building a basing pattern, digesting that advance. And now more and more companies are building electric cars! So I thought I’d take some time today to review the competition, to see if Tesla, whose base model costs $75,000 and has a range of 240 miles, has anything to worry about on the competitive front.

Small caps shot higher last Friday after Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated his willingness to consider a September rate cut.

On Friday, the S&P 600 SmallCap Index jumped by 3.8%, blasting through the 1,400 level that has served as intermittent overhead resistance in July and August. The index also broke through the 1,424 level, which the index jumped to following the weak jobs report a couple weeks ago.