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WHAT TO DO NOW: We continue to stay relatively close to shore as the major indexes remain rangebound and many stocks are hit and miss—but we are impressed given the resilience shown after some worrisome headlines, and earnings season has gone fairly well so far. Today and tonight, we’re making a few small moves: On the sell side, we sold one-third of our AppLovin (APP) stake today and, tonight, will sell half of our On Holding (ONON) position—but we’ll also buy an additional 3% position to Duolingo (DUOL) and start a half-sized stake in DoorDash (DASH). All told, we’ll still have a mid-40% cash position, but we could do more buying if the recent resilience leads to clear buying.

Today’s new addition is an emerging MedTech company that’s developed a whole-organ therapy system to treat liver-dominant cancers.

These are very difficult-to-treat cancers where survival rates are low. But this company’s system, which was just approved for its first indication last summer, is improving the odds.

It’s an exciting story, both from a treatment and investment perspective.

It’s March and that means it’s time for the NCAA tournament, the gauntlet of games that will eventually crown a school the king of college basketball. I filled out my bracket before the games began, but I didn’t have high hopes, especially since I’m no basketball expert. However, after a few days of play I ranked at the top of my friends’ bracket pool and decently high on the nationwide ESPN.com competition as well. But I don’t apply my basketball team selection methods to the stock market because investing is a whole different ball game.

Instead of writing a regular issue today, I’m bringing you the top four essays from our recent contest, “How I Lost Money in the Bear Market and What I Would Do if I Had Another Chance.” Our thanks to all our readers who submitted entries -- I thoroughly enjoyed reading your reflections.

On Monday, the market completed the quickest 30% pullback in history.



Since then, it’s completed one of the quickest rebounds!



Interesting times.



Equally interesting for investors in the young and fast-growing marijuana sector is that marijuana stocks actually bottomed a week ago, and they’ve been advancing every day since, which is a very good sign.



Because of that, I’m recommending a little averaging up in the portfolio today, taking our cash level down to 50%.



Full details in the issue.

The market remains healthy and thus I continue to recommend that you remain fully invested in a diversified portfolio. My last two recommendations were chip companies that consumers can’t really “see,” but this week’s recommendation is a consumer-facing company, so you can easily “kick the tires.”
As for the current portfolio, there are no sales, but four stocks get downgraded to Hold, for various reasons.


Details inside.

The market has been ripping higher with broader participation from sectors that weren’t doing much a couple months ago. That’s the good news. And it’s showing up in the charts with the Small Cap Index at multi-month highs (but well below all-time highs). IPOs are starting to find their legs too. The not-so-good news is that the market is looking a little stretched, which could mean a pause or pullback is coming sooner rather than later. But, the market has a way of doing the unpredictable and with so many investors thinking it’s time for break we could see just the opposite. This month we try to play both sides of the ball by spreading things around in different sectors and across market caps. There’s some IPOs, some high growth software and MedTech ideas, and another growth + value name. They all have their own qualities and stand out to me for different reasons right now.

The market succumbed today to some bad news from Europe, although some buyers did support shares after the early-morning dip. Net-net, today and last Friday were bad, but the major indexes remain range-bound; amazingly, the Nasdaq is now in the midst of its sixth 4% swing up or down since early June, and yet, has made basically no progress during that time. It’s choppy out there! Thus, we see no reason to change our Market Monitor from its neutral position. As for individual stocks, it, too, is a mixed bag—some big leaders broke down last week, but many are still base-building and a couple actually poked into new-high ground after solid quarterly reports. All in all, a little buying is fine, but do your buying on weakness, keep positions smaller than normal and adhere to your stops.

This week’s list is a hodgepodge of stocks from different industries; most are strong for individual reasons (earnings, etc.). Our top pick is PPG Industries (PPG), which isn’t an exciting company, but it delivered a solid earnings report and announced a merger that kicked the stock higher. We think it could do well if bought on pullbacks.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
A.O. SMITH (AOS)	0.00	49-50.5	-
ASML Holding (ASML)	350.01	52.5-54.5	-
DVA (DVA)	0.00	94-97	-
eBay Inc. (EBAY)	0.00	43-45	-
Medivation (MDVN)	0.00	90-94	-
Mellanox Technologies (MLNX)	92.00	84-90	-
PPG Industries (PPG)	0.00	109-112	-
Skyworks Solutions (SWKS)	0.00	27-28	-
USG Corp. (USG)	0.00	18.5-20	-
WOR (WOR)	0.00	21-22	-

One of our stocks reported a third-quarter earnings beat, and steel stocks are up.