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Heading into the last month of the year, the prospects for the market remain very good, with a plethora of technical indicators telling us the market will be higher in the years ahead, and thus I continue to recommend that you be heavily invested.

Forget tariffs, forget trade negotiations, forget politics, and forget all the “problems” of the outside world. Just hold a portfolio of carefully selected high-potential stocks, and all will be well.

Today’s recommendation is a fast-growing company that’s a major participant in the 5G communications revolution.

Details in the issue.

First and foremost, this is our last issue of 2024—next Monday is one of our two weeks off all year—so we want to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a healthy and prosperous New Year. We’ll be back at it with a fresh Top Ten issue on January 6.

As for the market, things finished up with a nice rally last Friday, but that doesn’t undo the action of the prior couple of weeks as a whole, which saw many leaders take hits and many major indexes crack their intermediate-term uptrends. To be clear, we remain flexible, and if the buyers pounce on the recent weakness for a few days, we think there will be lots of “resumption” patterns among individual stocks. Still, given the near- and intermediate-term selling we’ve seen, we want to see buyers show up in a meaningful way first before putting a bunch of money back to work. We’ll leave our Market Monitor at a level 5.

This week’s list is once again very growth-y, which we do find encouraging. Our Top Pick showed exceptional power in November and has now rested for three weeks, offering up a solid entry point, though we advise starting small given the environment.

The market sold off broadly this morning, and it certainly needed it. The market has been too strong for too long! But the main trend remains up and thus I continue to recommend that you be heavily invested.

Today’s recommendation is a search technology company with fast growth and great growth prospects, first recommended by Mike Cintolo.



As for our current holdings, I have two sell recommendations today, B&G Foods (BGS) and Zoom Video (ZM).



Full details in the issue.

Current Market Outlook


After a relatively quiet week, the major indexes and most stocks remain in uptrends, and that’s why we’re keeping our Market Monitor in bullish territory. But there remain a growing list of yellow flags, and the fact is that the broad market is very split, with lots of crosscurrents pushing and pulling various stocks and sectors. So far, the gyrations are normal and, possibly, bullish, helping to shake the tree, as we wrote last week. But many stocks are now approaching support—the next few days will be telling, as buyers should arrive on the scene if the intermediate-term uptrend is intact. All told, we remain bullish, but we’re keeping a watchful eye on things.

This week’s list includes everything from big, old-world companies to high-flying new-age firms. Our Top Pick is AMAG Pharmaceuticals (AMAG). The firm has transformed itself thanks to a recent acquisition, and the stock has been acting great for the past few weeks.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX)	0.00	140-144	133-135
Packaging Corp (PKG)	0.00	76-77.5	70-72
Palo Alto Networks (PANW)	236.92	113-118	104-106
Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. (ODFL)	221.91	77-79	72-73
Infinera (INFN)	0.00	13.5-14.5	12.5-13
Celgene (CELG)	0.00	112-116	104-105
Brunswick Corporation (BC)	0.00	48-50	46-46.5
Applied Materials (AMAT)	0.00	23-24.5	22-22.5
AMAG Pharm. (AMAG)	0.00	39-41	35-36
Alliance Data Systems (ADS)	0.00	273-284	265-268

The news media continues to whip investors into a frenzy over the direction of interest rates. Depending on where you look, you can find knowledgeable financial pundits making the case for steady, unchanging interest rates or for the Fed to lower the fed funds rate in July.

Stocks may be trading at all-time highs, but economists and analysts are looking for even more gains going into 2025. So, with meaningful catalysts still on the horizon, here are the strategies you can use and the steps you can take right now to take advantage of the continuing bull market.

Is the worst of this late-winter selloff over? Or are there lower depths still to plumb? A lot may depend on what the Fed says this week. Or the next bit of tariff news. Or who knows what. There’s a lot of uncertainty out there. And the market hates uncertainty. But after a month of almost nothing but selling, there are some encouraging signs of life.

Still, the wise move is to stick to safety, so this week we add a safe dividend stock that’s in about as reliable a business as there is: trash collection. It’s a new recommendation from Cabot Dividend Investor Chief Analyst Tom Hutchinson.

Details inside.

The market is at all-time highs, the Chiefs beat the 49ers in the most recent Super Bowl, and so-called meme stocks are headed to the moon. Is it January 2021 all over again? Sure feels like it.

Yes, GameStop (GME), AMC Entertainment (AMC) and the like are back, with those and a few others nearly tripling this week. The last time that happened, things didn’t end so well for the meme stocks. Or the market. Should it be a similar red flag for the bull market this time around?

Welcome to fall! The September Issue of Cabot Early Opportunities is heavy on software and industrial names, two areas of the market where I continue to see plenty of emerging opportunities and potential for share prices to benefit from lower rates.

Enjoy!

Most positions are up 5%-6% for the week, with a couple of exceptions.

Back at the beginning of this email, I mentioned the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII). I’m a life member; they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse about a decade ago, and I expect to come out ahead on the deal. Anyway, AAII regularly tests investing systems to see which ones perform best, and over the long run, two systems stand head-and-shoulders above the rest. The first is the CANSLIM approach advocated by Investor’s Business Daily (IBD). The second is Martin Zweig’s system.

Markets reacted well to yesterday’s inflation data that showed evidence of cooling as the economic recovery continued amid pandemic-related strained supply chains and signs that the recent rise in Covid-19 infections is starting to slow some business activity.

The IPO looked like a triumph for the company and a very bullish sign for the IPO market.

This morning’s market crash will go down in history as a big one—biggest by point drop and one of the biggest by percentage drop. But this is no time to panic. Instead, it’s time to recognize that the market is increasingly offering its wares at bargain prices, and all you need to do is have cash on hand when the climate improves.
For our portfolio, that means selling one more stock today, Endava (DAVA).
In the meantime, Cabot analysts continue to find stocks that are attractive for one reason or another and today’s featured stock is one of them—a leading chipmaker with great prospects as the world goes increasingly online and digital.

Full details in the issue.

The euphoric vaccine rally has driven the market indexes to all time highs. A vaccine likely means the end of the pandemic, sooner rather than later. The removal of the remaining lockdown restrictions should unshackle the economy and bring on a full and robust recovery.

A full recovery will lift those stocks and sectors that depend on the Main Street economy. It will lift cyclical sectors like energy, finance and hospitality that had not participated in the partial recovery. It’s already happening. The losers of the earlier stock market recovery are on fire.



In this issue I highlight one of the best banks in the country. It is a highly desired stock that should be very quick to recover. The stock has strong momentum and is still priced well below the 52-week high. This issue also highlights two covered call opportunities to cash in on the market rally.

A stimulus bill looks like it is right around the corner but we need to get through this winter before vaccines are widely available. Facebook faces a real challenge to break it up and accept legal liability for content. An EU-China summit is cancelled after China tried to limit speakers critical of China’s clampdown of Hong Kong. On the Explorer front this past week, MP Materials (MP) and NovoCure (NVCR) were particularly strong as Sea Limited (SE) briefly made a new high at 200. As promised, our new idea this week hails from Brazil and is a monopoly play on the most essential of all resources.

Due to the holidays, the next issue of Cabot Global Stocks Explorer will be published on January 7, 2021.

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.