Search

Embattled healthcare company Kenvue (KVUE) just received a buyout offer from Kimberly-Clark (KMB); does that make shares of the company behind Tylenol a buy, hold or sell?

The market officially entered a “correction” last week when the S&P fell 10% from the 52-week high on a closing basis. Now, it’s largely up to the Fed to determine where the market goes next.

The Fed meets on Wednesday and will decide on the Fed Funds rate. They are widely expected to leave the rate unchanged and then indicate they might raise it in the future. But the main event isn’t the Fed Funds rate. It’s the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield.

While small caps as a group lagged behind the broad market in 2017, these three small-cap sectors have plenty of momentum and are poised for more in 2018.

Over the past few weeks, the market has given us a bunch of presents—and now the market is trying to take some of our presents away. But this should come as no surprise. The only “surprise” is what excuse the media finds to pin the blame on, whether it’s China or Russia or Italy or interest rates or Trump or simply an economy that’s too good to last.
I’ll leave the finger-pointing to someone else. Instead, I’ll keep picking high-potential stocks and managing the portfolio to maximize gain and minimize risk.

Last week we sold four stocks from the portfolio, clearing away the weakest stocks and giving us some breathing room (and cash), so this week there is no need for more selling But I do have two downgrades to hold (CSCO and SE).

As for today’s recommendation, it’s a household name whose stock is temporarily on sale—and you get a nice dividend too.



Details inside.

Record Profits are Highly Favorable to Dividend Policies As income investors know, dividend-paying stocks have never been more popular or well-known. For some contrarian types, this is cause for concern. But as Stephen Leeb explains below, there are now more reasons than ever for companies to pay dividends: Apple (AAPL) is...

The economy has fallen into a recession. The official economic statistics are not at our doorsteps yet – two quarters of falling GDP – but it’s fairly obvious that American business has gone into hibernation for at least a few months.

Today’s addition to our portfolio is different from the rest in a number of ways. It’s not a pure-play cloud software stock, though it has a software division that generates 26% of revenue. It’s not a pure-play medical device stock, though it has a medical division that generates 33% of revenue. It’s not even based in the U.S.!

If it feels like value stocks are missing the bull market party this year, take comfort in knowing they’re not alone.

Thanks to the Magnificent Seven and a few other mega-cap tech stocks and red-hot artificial intelligence plays, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq have posted very strong returns through the first half of 2024, up 17.6% and 24.8%, respectively. But most other indexes and funds have had very average years. The Dow is up a mere 4.2%. The Russell 2000 (small-cap stocks) is up 0.8%. And the Equal Weight S&P 500 index is up 3.7% and is well off its late-March peak.

The market is in a holding pattern, but holding patterns aren’t bad things when they come on the heels of the kind of run-up we saw in November and the first three weeks of December. Besides, many of the stocks in our Stock of the Week portfolio aren’t in a holding pattern, with 10 of them (!) trading at either 52-week or all-time highs. So today, we add another high-upside position that should benefit from another banner year for the travel industry. Mike Cintolo recently recommended the stock to his Cabot Top Ten Trader audience.

Remain bullish. The overall market remains in great shape, and while a pullback of some sort is possible after a nice run during the past few weeks, the evidence points to higher prices in the weeks and months ahead. In the Model Portfolio, we sold Ligand Pharmaceuticals (LGND) on a special bulletin Monday, replacing it with Amazon (AMZN). We’ll stand pat tonight, though with two open slots (cash position near 16%), we’re aiming to do some new buying in the days ahead.

Part of my job at Cabot is fielding emails from our Cabot Wealth Advisory subscribers, and one question I see quite often is, “What are the differences between Cabot’s publications?” I’m going to explain our newsletters, one at a time in an ongoing series. This is part one of the series, focusing on Cabot Market Letter, our flagship publication.

It was yet another strong week for the market and countless stocks, many of which are breaking out to new highs. At some point the market may cool off, but for now at least, I’m not seeing any truly worrying signs. And in fact, the S&P 500 closed at a new record high as the index gained 1.44% on the week, while the Dow added 1.56%, and the Nasdaq rallied 1.63%.

Despite a rally midweek to new all-time highs, last week finished on a soft note as profit-taking and macro uncertainty crept back into equities. Investors grappled with cooling tech leadership, mixed earnings reactions, and a fresh focus on monetary policy. By week’s end the S&P 500 was up 0.3%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had slipped 0.4%, the Nasdaq Composite had fallen 0.9%, and the Russell 2000 had lost 1.5%.

Despite a rally midweek to new all-time highs, last week finished on a soft note as profit-taking and macro uncertainty crept back into equities. Investors grappled with cooling tech leadership, mixed earnings reactions, and a fresh focus on monetary policy. By week’s end the S&P 500 was up 0.3%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had slipped 0.4%, the Nasdaq Composite had fallen 0.9%, and the Russell 2000 had lost 1.5%.

Stock spin-offs are one of my favorite types of “special situation” investing, this is just one reason why.

Monday, shortly after the market open, we exited the stock components of three of our June covered call positions (FNKO, IGT, RRC). With these sales, here are our profits for all four June positions: