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Last week’s Cabot Investors Conference featured some of the best market insight from our top advisors. Here are my top five takeaways from the two-day event.

People will always need electricity, gas and water. And that’s what makes utility stocks so reliable. Here are three that I like right now.

We’re clearing one underperforming stock from the portfolio today, and putting one dividend stalwart back on Buy. In today’s issue, you’ll also find a very high-yielding new addition, a recap of our sell strategy and updates on all our stocks.

Mike Tyson inadvertently offers sage advice for investors. We add a new Buy, two stocks are approaching our price targets so we put them under review, and one stock surges following a shareholder-friendly payout announcement.

After some choppy action the prior two or three weeks with defensive stocks leading, growth stocks and many major indexes have improved their standing - including the strongest names continuing to zoom higher. Now, near-term, there are some uncertainties, with earnings season and the election coming up, and there are still areas (including the Nasdaq itself) that are still battling with old resistance. Thus, we wouldn’t be shocked if extended names shook out a bit. But overall, we’re still leaning bullish, though are picking our spots; tonight we’re starting one more half-sized stake in a familiar name we think can do very well should the bulls remain in charge.

The New Year is shaping up to be different from recent years. And market leadership is already changing.

The economy is transforming.

The positive effects of tax cuts and deregulation are starting to take effect. There are also significantly cheaper oil prices, lower interest rates, and the absence of much of the tariff uncertainty from last year. The chances are good that 2026 will feature the strongest economy of the bull market so far.

Most cyclical businesses benefit from a stronger economy. In fact, cyclical stocks have been the best performing market sectors for the past few months. Bank stocks in particular are in a great position because of cheap valuations, rising earnings, and a likely steepening yield curve.

Banks took it on the chin during inflation and rising rates. Although bank stocks have recovered from the loss, they are still near the same price level they were four years ago. The recovery should have further to go. In this issue, I highlight one of the country’s largest regional banks. The bank has rapidly growing earnings and the stock price has momentum.

In today’s note, we discuss developments and institutional ratings upgrades for some of the stocks in the portfolio, including Fidelity National Information (FIS), Paramount Global (PARA) and Starbucks (SBUX).


The famed “Santa Claus Rally” is underway and, assuming a successful conclusion, portends a bullish early part of the coming New Year.

The market has continued its volatility since mid-August, rising above 34,000 on the DJIA, then contracting, just to bolt upward again at the end of last week. Economic uncertainty and fears of a recession, although recently economists have been decreasing their likelihood for a 2022 recession, effectively pushing that into 2023.

The unemployment rate for August unexpectedly rose to 3.7%, but unemployment claims in the past week were less than forecast. It’s still a great market for folks looking for jobs.



We’ll have new housing stats next week, but anecdotally, I can tell you that prices are still being reduced in my region, but sales activity has increased, after about a six-week lull.

After falling over 30% in record time, the market has had a nice rebound. In less than a week the market jumped 15% from the lows. It has since stabilized somewhat with less volatility. While the worst may be over, I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet.

The world is still a mess with crosscurrents galore. But we will soon have something somewhat concrete to focus our attention on. Yes, I’m talking about first-quarter earnings season.

The Dow is in a tailspin.

After Wednesday’s Fed-ignited selloff, the 118-year-old index has now fallen for 10 consecutive days – its longest string of down days since 1974. Prior to yesterday, the index hadn’t fallen much during the first nine days of this losing streak, down just 3.47%; but yesterday’s 2.58% decline stretched those losses to an even 6%. So what once was a modest pullback is now hurtling toward a correction.

Regardless of your politics, “calm” is not a word you would likely use to describe the stock market under President Trump, at least through the first three months of his second term. But given the extreme tariff-fueled volatility that pervaded this time a week ago, that’s exactly how the last week has felt for investors: calm.

Over the weekend, the finance ministers of the eurozone decided on a bailout package for Cyprus. But why does this matter to us?

We included comments on earnings from nearly a dozen recommended companies, news about other recommended stocks, and a delay in the publishing of the May edition of the Cabot Turnaround Letter as the chief analyst is stuck in London.

While growth stocks had a rough time last week, the broad market remains strong, and thus I continue to think you should remain heavily invested as we head into the last month of the year.

Today’s stock has the potential to be a huge winner as it occupies a central position in a world-changing trend, but risk is high—as it should be when potential is high.



On the sell side, Coupa Software (COUP) gets the ax today, as it is going the wrong way.



Details inside.

People often overlook silver as a safe haven in volatile markets. But the best-performing silver stocks tend to rise faster than gold stocks.

Yesterday the FOMC decided to move ahead with another 25bps hike, bringing its federal funds target rate to a range of 4.75% to 5%. The statement was missing the phrase, “...ongoing increases in rates would be appropriate,” which was present in the eight previous statements, suggesting the Fed may be done hiking soon.

Glad to be back! A lot has happened in the two weeks since I last wrote, with the market reaching new record highs despite the tariff deadline coming and going without a ton of clarity. And now second-quarter earnings season has arrived, which could provide further wind in the market’s sails, though estimates are more tempered (5% growth, vs. 14% growth among large-cap companies in Q1) this time around.

Meanwhile, our portfolio is humming, with TWO of our stocks reaching their price targets today! We’ll “retire” them to make room for today’s new recommendation, from an industry I wrote extensively about in our last update: movie theaters. The hope is that this movie theater stock will follow in the footsteps of United Airlines (UAL) and Carnival Corp. (CCL) and quickly reach our price target as shares play catch-up to their fundamentals due to some post-Covid lag.

Details inside. Enjoy!