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This month’s candidate is another software stock—but not a high flyer. Rather, this company is still scooting just below the radar, and trades at a big discount to most of its peers. When you value it based on growth, it’s downright cheap—but valuation isn’t why we’re buying it.

January is living up to its volatile reputation but there’s no doubt it’s begun to improve—the intermediate-term trend, which was negative for most everything out there, is back to neutral; the broad market is showing some rapid, intriguing improvement; and individual stocks have improved their standing, with some popping to new highs. To be clear, this isn’t a buying panic, but after a few weeks of tedious action that has brought sentiment down, we’re OK with gradually extending your line while remaining nimble. We’ll up our Market Monitor to a level 7 today.

This week’s list is a mixed bag, with everything from growth to turnarounds to commodity names. Our Top Pick looks like one of the leaders of a new group move after being in the doghouse for a couple of years. Try to get in on dips.

The evidence for the overall market continues to improve; over the past week, two blastoff indicators have turned green, which should bode well when looking out over the next few months. Growth stocks, however, remain in a consolidation phase following some huge runs, with many (not all) stocks sagging back during the past week or two. Overall, though, the pullbacks have been normal, so we remain optimistic, though we’re still stepping slowly and looking for decent entry points.

In tonight’s issue, we’re doing a touch more buying, filling out a position in one of our stocks, following the addition of a full position last week. That will leave us with around 18% in cash.

Explorer stocks are off to a good start in 2026. Alibaba (BABA) shares soared 15.8% this week as it was reported that Alibaba Cloud has captured about 36% of China’s AI cloud market share. Archer Aviation (ACHR) shares followed last week’s 11.5% gain with a 5.8% gain this week as its CEO presented at Bank of America’s Defense and Commercial Aerospace Forum. Alphabet (GOOG) shares gained more than 4% this week as Apple (AAPL) announced that it had selected Gemini to power a more personalized version of its Siri chatbot. And Coeur Mining (CDE) shares were up 7.7% this week following last week’s 8% gain.

Now we look to a region that is in the headlines, performed well last year, and is likely to be at the center of attention this year.

Explorer stocks had a mixed week due to weaker market and some profit taking as SQM reported another strong quarter with earnings up 857% year-over-year. Positive second-quarter corporate earnings reports and the flattening of still-high inflation seemed to settle investor nerves and despite this week’s pullback, the S&P is up 17% from its June lows. This week we go to a big resource play on a strategic growth trend that is powered by Dr. Copper.

Bank stocks such as Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs (GS) had strong earnings while tech is starting to show signs of weakness. ASML (ASML) reported sharply lower quarterly sales and giant Samsung Electronics’ share price (listed on the Korea Exchange) has fallen almost 30% over the past six months as it struggles to catch up with SK Hynix and Micron in supplying the most advanced AI chips.

Still, everyone is waiting for Nvidia’s (NVDA) earnings as capital spending in AI remains robust.

Markets and especially the tech-heavy Nasdaq index led by semiconductor stocks sold off yesterday. Reasons include perceived rising protectionist and isolationist pressures in both Europe and America. Meanwhile, small-cap stocks continue to rally, and some overseas markets were also up.

As one would expect, our tech stocks pulled back somewhat while all three of our dominator stocks gained ground this week.

As we approach the end of May, the S&P 500 is still up 10% for the year, including a 4.6% gain so far in May. But the market was off yesterday as bond yields creep upwards. It was a lackluster week for Explorer stocks as well.

U.S. stocks trade at a P/E ratio over 21x earnings while European stocks trade at a cheaper 14x earnings on average. U.K. stocks look even more compelling at just 12x earnings.

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.!

Cybersecurity stocks got a boost from last week’s Equinox data breach. It’s not the first or last time the sector will prosper from an act of cyber terror.

The trick is to think about taxes before you invest, not when you’re thinking of selling.

Marijuana investments are the smart play for the next decade, like buying Netflix (NFLX) or Starbucks (SBUX) at the beginning of this decade.

As stocks have stumbled in recent months, these exchange stocks have picked up steam - emerging as a smart hedge against further market volatility.

Education: Covered Calls/Buy-Write

Buying car-sharing insurance is on the minds of more people these days as services like Turo and Getaround gain traction.

I focus on companies that produce products and services that will be in high demand in the future.

In the last few years, year-end planning has been difficult because so many provisions of the law were set to expire at the end of each year, and Congress worked on the law through the holiday seasons. But with most provisions of the tax law settled in the early 2013...