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The big thing on most investors’ minds is whether or not this market can go higher.

Revolve (RVLV) beat expectations in Q2 but concerns that the story has been “as good as it can get” and that things will slow down in the coming quarters, in part due to Delta variant circulation curbing going-out activities, are hammering shares today (-20% at the worst, better now). All things considered the selling appears overdone and I expect a bounce in the coming days. How RVLV acts in the near future will determine its standing in our portfolio, but at the moment aggressive investors may want to step in to buy. Formally, we are maintaining at hold to see how this earnings report is digested over the coming days.

Back to the market, there’s more good news than bad from my perspective. Employment and hiring are good, the lessening of tariffs on $75 billion worth of U.S exports to China is good, interest rates remain low (many economists see a rate cut coming too) and there are plenty of good earnings reports to get excited about.

To say that the coronavirus has infected the stock market would be to state the obvious. Less obvious is the answer to the question; what’s the antidote?

EVBG, KRNT and CRNC Report. Sell GSHD and CDLX

In JOANN’s second quarter as a public company, management has dealt with the Delta variant complicating social sewing events and supply chain challenges driving up costs. The net effect in Q2 was that revenue of $496.9 million missed by almost $36 million and adjusted EPS of -$0.20 missed by $0.06.

The market continues to remain strong in the face of economic data that’s anything but. As we’ve already discussed at great length, this is because the market is forward looking and there’s been enough potential positive news around treatments and the timeline to a vaccine that the path of least resistance has been higher.

Under normal market conditions growth investors like to get pulled into strong stocks and buy them as they head higher. This is anything but a normal market, however!

The S&P 500 crossed above its 25-day moving average line on April 6 and is back above its 50-day moving average line today. It is only 16% off its previous high. Granted, under the circumstances that doesn’t seem quite right. But nevertheless, there it is.

The big news this week was, of course, the swearing in of President Biden and all the associated stories about the transition. Fun fact – portfolio holding Everbridge (EVBG) supplied its Mass Notification system to help keep Washington, D.C. area residents and visitors safe and tuned in during, and leading up to, the Presidential Inauguration.

As far as the last week goes our stocks are up an average of 3%.

The flavor of the market hasn’t changed in the last week, in my view. There is still a sense that many high growth stocks have run too far. I think the lesser-informed general public hears about the recent slide in the mega-caps (AAPL, AMZN, MSFT, FB, etc.) and thinks they are “the market,” and that since they’re going down the market is in trouble.

Neither the broad market nor the S&P 600 Small Cap index have done much over the last week. But both received a small boost yesterday after the Fed upgraded its 2021 growth outlook and said it didn’t expect to raise rates until 2024.

With most of our companies having now reported we are turning our attention back to the longer-term future. For the most part, earnings from our companies were good and we’ve only made a few incremental ratings changes here and there.

After an insane couple of weeks this one has felt relatively calm. There is still plenty of market-moving news around the election, vaccines, the pandemic’s frightening trajectory, etc. but I think we’ve all become somewhat accustomed enough to alarming headlines – within a certain range – that it’s harder to get shaken now than in the past.

The market continues to recover from last week’s short but intense decline. In our portfolio there’s been a dearth of news flow. That’s fine with me. I think we could all use a little less stimulation and step back from our computers and mobile devices a bit more. This has been a crazy spring.

As we move closer to the end of another week, investors continue to focus on the potential timeline to open parts of the economy. New York has just said the lockdown for non-essential businesses remains in effect for at least another month, but clearly there are many areas that haven’t been so badly affected.

I’m sending this week’s update out a day early because I have a window to work now with the kids somewhat entertained with Christmas presents. And it’s always nice not to load up our team with communications the day before a holiday (Cabot is closed Friday).

As we move into the final weeks of 2020, I’m inclined to become a little more cautious with our buy ratings because, well, stocks have been en fuego! On that note, several stocks move from buy to hold today.

In the market, there seems to be some rotation going on. Or at least that was my sense of things over the first two and a half trading days of the week.