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The markets have continued their bullish momentum so far in 2024, with growth stocks continuing to lead the way—especially large caps, which are up 32.94% so far this year.

Sector-wise, Communication Services (up 9.74%), Technology (up 5.07%), and Healthcare (up 4.11%) are the winners so far, with Real Estate (down 4.37%), Utilities (-2.91%), and Consumer Discretionary (-0/83%) the losing sectors.

Housing inventory is still tight, with prices remaining a little lofty. The S&P Case-Shiller home price index came in at a 5.4% rise, which was a bit less than the 5.7% forecast, but still higher than the month before.

Jerome Powell went full Grinch last week, sparking a brief market selloff after saying the Fed would cut rates at a slower pace than expected in 2025. Prior to that, there were some obvious cracks beneath the market’s surface, so Powell’s downer of a press conference served more to expand the selling than cause it. But the nice rebound in the last two trading days shows the bulls are still mostly in charge, which means it’s a good time to add a mid-cap water stock that Tyler Laundon just introduced to his Cabot Early Opportunities audience.

Details inside. Happy Holidays!

There is a colossal housing shortage in this country.

A decade of underbuilding in the housing industry following the financial crisis has left the industry unable to meet the needs of the growing population. It is estimated that the demand for homes exceeds the current national supply by a whopping 4.5 million.

The jilted supply/demand dynamic has caused the median U.S. home price to soar a staggering 40% just since the pandemic. In addition, mortgage rates have soared to the highest level in two decades. The prices and mortgage rates are making housing unaffordable for vast numbers of potential buyers. Sellers are unwilling to trade up and get a higher mortgage rate.

There aren’t enough new homes, and existing homes aren’t coming on the market either. Buyers can’t buy and sellers won’t sell. But there is reason to believe the housing problems will get a lot better in the years ahead.

While the situation is likely to improve, the supply/demand imbalance will likely remain for several years. That’s a problem for the housing market and economy to work through. But it’s good news if you’re a homebuilder. New homes should be in high demand for years to come, and sales should increase with the improving conditions.

In this issue, I highlight the premier luxury home builder in the U.S. The stock has the best track record of all large homebuilders, and the company is in an ideal position to benefit from high demand and increasing buying in the years ahead.

The S&P 600 Small Cap Index, which hadn’t broken above 1,000 for most of 2019, is now comfortably above that level and appears to be heading higher.

Most of the outperformers of the last two months—including financials, energy stocks and industrials—are consolidating, but we haven’t seen significant pullbacks.

Most of us will fail to keep our New Year’s Resolutions, but financial resolutions are some of the easiest to keep, and buying ETFs can help you succeed.

Following the second 10% U.S. stock market correction of 2018, stocks are trying to get their footing. We’re witnessing some large daily price swings, especially among energy stocks, which are being buffeted by falling oil prices.

In choosing today’s stock, I leaned toward the growth side, because that’s what’s working best today. Then, to get an element of safety—because somewhere, sometime, a nasty correction is likely to hit the market—I chose a stock with very strong and growing institutional sponsorship, the kind of stock that has the potential to be the last stock standing when this bull market eventually ends.

After a punishing three-week decline, the market has stabilized a bit, and we’ve actually seen some secondary positives, too, with a short-term positive divergence in our Two-Second Indicator, falling Treasury rates and some big dips in investor sentiment. That said, both the markets intermediate-term and longer-term trends are pointed down now, and while there are some resilient stocks out there, most names are also buried beneath key levels. A bottom-building process could be underway, and big-picture, we don’t view this downturn as unusual (see more on that in today’s issue), but for now, we’re staying defensive with a big cash hoard, waiting for the market to change character.

Although recession fears remain an overhang, the U.S. consumer has remained resilient, which bodes well for these 3 discretionary stocks.

This past May, I recommended buying calls in PTON stock. The result was perhaps the greatest options trade I’ve ever made.

Right now, you can buy Warren Buffett’s largest oil and gas holding ... for cheaper than he did.

Despite plenty to worry about in the market including the rising tensions in the Middle East and the short-lived port strike, impressively the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq all rose marginally last week.

Underperforming “loser stocks” are an inevitable part of investing, but they can still provide value to your portfolio, especially at year’s end.

Cannabis is enjoying its highest profile ever as an election-year issue, and that presents cannabis investors with a great medium-term buy signal.

This earnings season, shares of Facebook (FB), Twitter (TWTR) and Netflix (NFLX) got pummeled by investors, and mostly for good reason.

Getting to the market today—first we had the August 24 bottom, a month later we had the retest, and now we’ve got a rally that, while it’s not perfect, is certainly creating some winners. I think selective buying is okay. But what to buy? For my money, there are two methods of stock-picking that tend to work.