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What happens when you implement a digital marketing platform within secure online banking and mobile banking channels? Is that even possible?
The short answer is yes, it’s possible … if you can get banks to sell you their transaction data, host your platform and accept the revenue share agreements you propose for all the deals that consumers accept while logged in.
This month’s Cabot Small-Cap Confidential stock has created such a platform, and it’s taking off.
The story, and potential, of what happens when digital marketing and fintech walk down the aisle together is inside.

This has been a busy week with earnings reports—the bulk of them on the positive side. China and other emerging and international companies seem to be posting good numbers but macro headwinds are weighing on markets for now.

The Hong Kong situation is one issue causing concern so this week we head back to Singapore for a high quality financial play on Asia

The market has been wild in recent days, giving investors very mixed messages—on one hand, many leading growth stocks have broken down, but on the other, the broad market is strengthening, with our Cabot Tides actually flashing a new green light. Given the crosscurrents, we’re taking things on a stock-by-stock basis, selling stocks that are cracking support and looking for new buys among fresh leadership.

I hope you had an enjoyable and relaxing summer. Wall Street is back to work this week, and Apple (AAPL) is launching a new product or two next week, so get ready for stocks to start moving again.

Emerging markets are seeing a boost from positive news out of Hong Kong and on the U.S.-China front. Our Emerging Markets Timer has raced higher in recent days, putting it within striking distance of a new buy signal. Our new recommendation comes from an unexpected country, but a well established semi-monopoly industry.

We are in the late stages of a recovery and bull market. The economy is still strong and the bull market could continue for a while. But the escalation of trade frictions with China is disrupting the situation.
Since the trade war escalated a month ago, the market has fallen every week since. And things might get worse before they get better. The trade war takes a small toll on the economy but it hurts the global economy much more. A faltering global economy would come back and bite us, and perhaps draw the next recession closer.
With no catalyst in sight to fix the current situation and a recession looming somewhere in the not-too-distant future, it makes sense to play defense. Defensive dividend paying stocks are the stars of the market now and may continue to be for a long while.
In this issue I highlight one of the very best defensive dividend stocks on the market. It has rock solid earnings in any environment and the stock should perform well in just about any market.

Current Market Outlook


Sometimes the simplest analysis is the best, and that continues to be the case for the current market—the intermediate-term trend is down for the major indexes and most stocks (we even saw the resilient software sector finally come under pressure today), so until that changes, you should remain cautious, holding a good-sized chunk of cash, limiting new buying and honoring stops. To be fair, there are many signs that the market might be close to a bounce—emotions are beginning to run high, many measures of breadth and sentiment are “oversold” and we still see a fair number of stocks building normal launching pads—but until the buyers actually step up to the plate, those don’t really mean much. (Indeed, today was the Nasdaq’s fifth heavy-volume down day of the past seven sessions.) Our Market Monitor falls to 4 this week.

None of that, though, tells you to stick your head in the sand. This week’s list is again full of solid charts and stories from a variety of sectors. Our Top Pick is Guardant Health (GH), which isn’t tearing up the charts but is in the middle of a nice, tight consolidation.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)	82.24	26.5-28	23.5-24.5
Anaplan (PLAN)	47.52	40-42	35-36.5
Beyond Meat (BYND)	132.87	87-94	72-76
Dynamic Materials (BOOM)	60.21	67.5-71	61-63.5
Guardant Health (GH)	88.34	75-79	65-67.5
Heico (HEI)	134.84	115-119	105-108
Novocure (NVCR)	0.00	50.5-53	45.5-47.5
Paycom Software (PAYC)	0.00	193-198	180-183
Smartsheet (SMAR)	44.12	41-43.5	37-38
Snap Inc. (SNAP)	16.68	11-12	9.6-10.2

Despite the daily focus on the worst aspects of the China tariff story, the fact is that the broad market has built a decent base (albeit loose) over the past month. Repeated tales of doom and gloom aren’t sending it any lower. Thus, I remain long-term bullish, though short-term somewhat cautious.And I continue to recommend that you maintain a portfolio full of diversified stocks that meet your investment goals. Last week’s recommendation was a hot growth stock, so this week we swing back to a conservative dividend-paying stock, one that is performing very well today.As for our current stocks, there are no changes. The last week of August changed little, but going forward, I expect a little more action, ideally to the upside. Details in the issue.

The market remains under pressure in the short-term, for all the well-publicized reasons, but long-term, the market trend remains up, and many of our stocks are acting well. Today’s recommendation is a repeat, a stock we made money in last year that subsequently had a big correction and is now ready to run again. And it’s got a great story, too!

The cannabis sector remains in a correction, but many of our stocks are doing considerably better than the sector. And the sector itself is very likely near a bottom—which I why today’s issue is titled “Buying Opportunity.”
For new investors, it’s a great time to get started.
However, I’m also recommending reducing positions in four of our holdings, always working to put more of our money in the leading stocks—and with these sales, our cash level will rise—hopefully briefly—to 30%.

Since we’re in the midst of a sudden stock market correction, I decided to feature three stocks today that seem to offer the best opportunities while their prices are temporarily low.

Be brave! If you saved up portfolio cash with which to buy low at moments like this, now is the time to buy something! You don’t have to spend it all in one day, of course.

If you are new at buying low during stock market corrections, and you’re feeling excited and scared and tentative and unconfident, send me an email. You’re going to be okay, and I’d love to hear about your experience. Learning to buy low is an important step toward increasing your future stock portfolio success.

The market has been all over the place so far in August, with some huge daily declines and advances depending on the news of the day. While the continued rebounds are a good sign buyers are lurking out there, the fact is the intermediate-term trend isn’t up, so we think it’s best to stick with a cautious stance—jettisoning your portfolio of losers and laggards (as we’ve done in recent weeks) while looking for either undervalued or resilient stocks to take their place. Our choice this week is a blue chip that’s cheap, near support, pays a nice dividend and is in position to benefit from any bounce in interest rates.

Current Market Outlook


The market came close to giving an all-clear signal last week, but the endless U.S.-China trade flareup knocked the market back on Friday. Despite the headlines, we still don’t see the environment as a total disaster—the indexes themselves are still holding above their recent lows, and many individual stocks (and most we’re following) are actually more resilient than that. But the bottom line is that little money is being made, and with the intermediate-term trend continuing to point down, you should remain in a cautious stance, keeping new buying on the small side and holding some cash. From here, we’re open to anything—given the pervasive pessimism, a new uptrend wouldn’t shock us, but the onus remains on the bulls to prove they are retaking control before we become more constructive.

This week’s list has a wide mix of stocks that have resisted the market’s downward pull—with some actually advancing despite the environment. Our Top Pick is MasTec (MTZ), a stock we missed a couple of weeks ago but think it can have a sustained advance due to its exposure to many strong markets.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Allakos (ALLK)	77.83	80-84	66-69
Blackstone Group (BX)	49.12	47.5-49.5	42.5-43.5
D. R. Horton (DHI)	66.55	48-49.5	44.5-45
HubSpot (HUBS)	582.89	196-200	178-182
Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS)	97.20	92-95	83-85
LivePerson (LPSN)	58.55	37-39	33-34.5
MasTec, Inc. (MTZ)	66.65	59-61	53.5-54.5
Pinduoduo (PDD)	87.53	28-30	24-25.5
Synopsys (SNPS)	137.53	133-137	122-124
Target (TGT)	124.77	101-105	91-93