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A straddle is a good options strategy to pursue if a trader believes that a stock’s price will move significantly, but is unsure of which direction.

After a strong end to last week—the Nasdaq joined the Dow and S&P above its 200-day moving average on Wednesday—the market is pulling back a bit to start April, but we don’t think there’s any cause for alarm yet. We are putting WYNN on Hold today, after the company reported continued weakness in Macau last night.

Small caps made a heck of a move over the past week to close just below 700 on the S&P 600. That 4.3% move was led by growth (up 4.6%). Sector wise, tech led the charge with a 6.2% rally.

The Emerging Markets Timer continues to flash a buy signal, although the iShares Emerging Markets Fund (EEM) has weakened somewhat. We have one change in the portfolio today.

The market has maintained its intermediate-term uptrend, and you can continue to become more invested, cautiously. Today we’re putting Target (TGT) back on Buy after the retailer reported improvement in some key metrics in the latest quarter.

Remain bullish. The market is in good shape, and we’re starting to see some growth stocks reassert themselves. There are still some potholes out there, but we believe you should remain heavily invested. In the Model Portfolio, we sold Five Below (FIVE) on a Special Bulletin yesterday, replacing it with GrubHub (GRUB), and today, we’re placing Facebook (FB) back on Buy.

Buying gold is a great way to hedge against market uncertainties. These 5 questions will help you identify a gold bull market.

Earnings season is getting hot and heavy. Results have been good so far, and continued positive earnings reports could ignite a bullish trend.

Several big tech companies report on earnings this week. The results could determine if the technology sector, and consequently the market indexes, move higher. It’s been a huge year so far for cyclical sectors, including energy, materials, industrials, and consumer stocks. The rally has broadened while technology has sputtered.

One of the stocks in the portfolio reported strong earnings and a revenue beat—it moves from Buy Low Opportunities Portfolio to Growth Portfolio.

The Cabot Undervalued Stocks Advisor has an investment horizon that is generally one to two years. As long as our companies are making fundamental progress, we’re comfortable with waiting for periods that easily extend past December 31st. However, the market doesn’t necessarily share that perspective. For many reasons, including professional investor bonus calculations, tax-related trading, window-dressing and simple year-end portfolio house-cleaning, the market’s horizon shrinks geometrically as the calendar winds down.

The market sobered up in December after a big post-election rally in November. The S&P fell 2.5% in the last month of the year. But January has started out with stocks up 2.2% already.

Technology is driving the market higher. The sector is taking off after Nvidia (NVDA) issued bullish statements about demand for its artificial intelligence chips. AI is a huge growth catalyst for the market’s largest sector and has proven it can drive the indexes higher all by itself. In fact, technology has been the primary catalyst for the S&P over most of this bull market. But things might be changing.

This is a huge week for earnings and economic news. Maybe, just maybe, the market will be driven by something other than tariff news.

This week, 180 of the 500 S&P companies report earnings, including several of the big tech companies. On Wednesday, first-quarter GDP will be released. Jobs and inflation reports also come out this week. The consensus expectation for first-quarter GDP is 0.10%, way down from 2.4% in the fourth quarter.

After a strong start to the year, February was a down month for the S&P 500. The index is just a little over 1% higher YTD. But the news is better than it may seem.

Sure, the market has been struggling. But it’s only because of technology, which is down over 5% YTD. Nine of the other ten sectors in the S&P are positive for the year. Some sectors are having very good years as Health Care is up over 8% and Consumer Staples and Financials are up over 7% YTD.

The resilient market forges on. After the biggest market dip since April in the middle of last month, the S&P has gained it all back in the last couple of weeks.

Stocks weakened last month as investors worried that tech stock valuations were too high, as the artificial intelligence trade may be overdone. They also worried that the Fed would not cut rates in December. But stocks were rejuvenated after some positive statements by Fed members greatly increased the odds of a December fed funds rate cut.

The market is still right near the high. But the dog days of summer are setting in.

Stocks are resilient. News regarding tariffs and the economy got better and then got worse. The market is taking it in stride and meandering near the high. Now we are at that time of year when investors focus on squeezing in the last bit of summer fun.

It’s another new high! The market continues to forge slowly higher.

There was positive tariff news over the weekend. President Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen agreed to the framework of a trade deal that includes a 15% tariff on European imports and an agreement by the EU to buy $750 billion worth of U.S. energy over three years. Although the deal so far is considered highly advantageous to the U.S., it’s only a broad outline with many details to be worked out.

Wondering how to invest in stocks when interest rates are hiked again? The fact that we know it’s coming is why you shouldn’t worry.

One month ago, unable to pay its debts with an ever-dwindling supply of cash flow, the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy, becoming the largest American city ever to do so. The filing left holders of $369 million in G.O. (general obligation) bonds issued by Detroit facing the probability of...

Earnings season is over, and the market’s main focus is on the February inflation numbers that come out this week.

Stocks were able to continue to build on last year’s late rally in January and February. Mixed Fed and interest rate news was overcome by strong earnings, particularly in technology. Signs that artificial intelligence is continuing to drive strong demand and sales lifted the sector and the market.

The market got a reprieve last week. But we’re probably not out of the woods yet.

The S&P 500 came about as close to a bear market as you can get early last week. In fact, it hit the 20% mark down from the high on an intraday basis twice. But it’s not an official bear market until the closing price falls below 20%. The S&P seemed to have one foot on a bear market and the other foot on a banana peel. Then last Wednesday happened.