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Many of oil service companies have the numbers that should keep buyers interested for a while.

In general, I think the future is pretty bright. By all measures, the world’s population today is better-nourished, better-educated and less violent than at any time in history. The long-term trends for the world as a whole look good. And if you’re going to be a successful investor, it truly helps to have a long-term perspective—to be able to imagine the possibility of holding onto a stock for ten years or more. Admittedly, that’s hard to do, with the media’s focus on the short term. And in the year ahead it may get even more difficult, as the noise from the current record-setting G.O.P. Presidential field—and indeed, all the election-oriented activity of the next fifteen months—serves as a constant distraction from the task/pleasure of managing your own money.

Mega-cap tech again outperformed last week, while the banks continued to look suspect/horrible, and the action under the surface is flashing warning signs.

Mega-cap tech again outperformed last week, while the banks continued to look suspect/horrible, and the action under the surface is flashing warning signs.

This market is having quite a rally. The S&P 500 just had one of the best months ever in July, up 9.1% for the month, and is currently up more than 12% from the June low. Will the good times last?

Investors are sniffing an end game to the misery of ever-rising inflation and an ultra-hawkish Fed that has been dogging the market all year. The market tends to anticipate six months or so into the future. By then, it sees inflation under control and a Fed that is done hiking rates and maybe even talking about easing again.

The torrid 17% rally from the June low is sputtering. That makes this market dangerous.
After bleeding all year because of persistent high inflation and a hawkish Fed, the market rallied on newfound optimism. The market anticipates six to nine months down the road and investors envisioned a Fed that is all done hiking rates by then amid falling inflation. But that’s optimistic. And the optimism has been waning.

Is this a bear market rally or a new bull market?

That’s the question investors are grappling with. Is this the end of the crummy market or is this 17% rally off the lows just a head fake? Let’s examine each possibility.

There is a lot of uncertainty out there, which isn’t an entirely new scenario. We’ll continue to try and play it a little safe right now by keeping all stocks previously rated hold at the same rating.

Here we are at the beginning of a new year and a new decade. A pivotal calendar turn like this is a great time to stop, get off the train, look around and see where we are, and where we might be going.

It is likely that a pullback in the market, as measured by the indexes, is increasingly likely in the near term. But that would be healthy and welcome. And it would set up things better for the rest of the year.

Remain cautious. The market’s latest selloff has continued this week, with even this morning’s good-looking gap higher disintegrating by day’s end.

This stock has a good, solid story and a stock that appears to finally be kicking into gear after 16 months of post-IPO meandering.

The Cabot Top Ten Trader system evaluates price and relative performance of 8,000 charts each week to select the strongest momentum stocks.

A Put-Write strategy is used when a rise in the price of the underlying asset is expected, or a significant decline is not expected.

One of the market truisms that I learned long ago concerns selling stocks near the end of a strong run-up—and because the odds are growing stronger that we’re nearing such a situation now, I bring it up today.

Every so often one of our stocks is the target of a short report that tries to make the case that a company is garbage, a fraud, and/or wildly overvalued.