Search

Happy New Year to everyone - I wish you and your families a healthy and prosperous New Year. As we turn the page to 2022, let’s review some trends before getting to a company with a new device to shake up and lower costs in healthcare at home and around the world.

This week, we comment on earnings from Conduent (CNDT), Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (IRWD), Organon (OGN), Toshiba (TOSYY) and TreeHouse Foods (THS).

The Fed raised benchmark interest rates a half a point and signaled more to come. Elsewhere, scientists studying fusion energy at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have crossed a huge milestone in reproducing the power of the sun in a laboratory. Explorer positions showed relative strength, led again by Kraken (KRNKF). Today we go to Britain for a historic and strategically important company, brand, and stock selling for a bit over $1 a share.

Today’s recommendation is a fast-growing mass market stock that has the leading market share in the online food ordering business. The stock has been trading sideways for five weeks and I think it’s ready for a breakout.

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.

Current Market Outlook


Last week’s issue was titled “Next Few Days Should be Key,” and we think they were—in a bullish way. The market’s strong snapback to new highs (in the indexes and many leaders) made the prior dip look like a shakeout, which generally bodes well. That said, the action didn’t erase all the yellow flags out there, either, as sentiment is bubbly, many stocks are extended in time and price and, most important, tons of names are set to report earnings in the days ahead, which will be key for the intermediate term. Don’t get us wrong, we’re encouraged, but we still think it’s best to pick your spots on the buy side and trail your stops (and book some partial profits here and there) as opportunities arise. We’ll move our Market Monitor back up a notch and see how things go from here.

This week’s list is brimming with strong names, including more than a few that reacted well to earnings last week. For our Top Pick, we’ll go with Dynatrace (DT), which has just gotten going from a multi-month structure and looks ready for a sustained advance.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Align Technology (ALGN)	602	585-605	525-540
Bill.com Holdings (BILL)	179	170-177	150-154
Canada Goose Holdings (GOOS)	42	40-42.5	35.5-37
Dynatrace (DT)	56	53-56	47.5-49
PayPal (PYPL)	282	267-277	240-246
Pinduoduo (PDD)	188	178-186	160-164
SM Energy (SM)	12	10-11	8-8.8
Snap Inc. (SNAP)	64	60.5-63.5	53-54.5
Tapestry, Inc. (TPR)	39	35-37	31.5-33
Zendesk (ZEN)	156	150-155	138-141

The S&P 500 (SPX) index is up 10% since rising above its previous trading range in late November. While 10% is not necessarily a big move for a stock, it is definitely a big move for a major index.

One year ago, soon after marijuana sales became legal in Canada, investors were throwing money at the sector, anxious to get a piece of the action. Today, the opposite is true—getting money for a cannabis business takes real work!

The major indexes continue to hit new highs, all Cabot’s market timing indicators remain positive, and our portfolio is solid, with no particular worry spots today. Third-quarter earnings have been good to us.

Of course, that will change, and when it does, we will adjust our stance, but for now, we’re making hay while the sun shines—only downgrading one stock to hold today because it’s gotten too expensive.

As for today’s new recommendation, it’s an undervalued stock in a traditional industry, and paying a solid dividend to boot.

Details in the issue.

In a raging bull market that has benefited virtually every one of the S&P’s 11 sectors, the conspicuous laggard among them has been the consumer staples.


The staples sector is down 2.4% year-to-date, compared to positive net returns on the other 10 sectors. Leadership in recent quarters, which is illustrated in the following chart, includes: info tech (up 13%), communications services (up 12%), consumer discretionary (up 10%) and utilities (up 8%).

Explorer stocks are either steady or performing well with Dutch Bros (BROS) shares up 18.4% during the last two weeks and Luckin Coffee (LKNCY) shares jumping 9.4% this week after a strong first quarter with 41% year-over-year revenue growth.

In addition, Singapore’s Sea Limited (SE) shares are up 18.6% during the last two weeks, and Spain’s Banco Santander (SAN) shares have surged 73% so far in 2025. China’s BYD (BYDDY) shares are up 53% in 2025. New silver and gold play Coeur Mining (CDE) shares were up 13.5% in their first two weeks in the portfolio.

The gold-silver ratio is an intimate relationship. It indicates how many ounces of silver are needed to buy one ounce of gold. In the last century, this ratio reached its lowest point at just under 15:1 at the end of 1979 and peaked at over 110:1 during the COVID crisis.

This year, we passed the 100:1 mark for only the fourth time in a hundred years – a strong signal that silver may be underpriced.

So today, we add an aggressive silver play to the Explorer portfolio as a bet that it will close the gap on gold.

In choosing today’s stock, I leaned conservative, and found a dividend-paying stock with strong growth prospects. When I selected it yesterday, the stock was at the bottom of its recent range, but today it shot up to near the top of that range. It’s still a good story, but I’d like it better where it was yesterday.

The past week was one of the most fun in a while! But you can’t rest on your laurels in this business; just when you start to congratulate yourself is when the market comes around to slap you down. Today I’m dialing back the risk a bit with a conservative growth stock that you almost certainly know, and which is at a decent buying point.

Chinese stocks were hit this week both on American exchanges and overseas as Chinese regulators ratcheted up the pressure through antitrust and regulatory steps that caught many executives and investors off guard. The Golden Dragon index of Chinese technology stocks fell by 15% in two days before rebounding after regulators tried to reassure markets.

I believe the market’s churn over the last month or so is understandable given its sharp rebound over the last year. Investors and analysts alike are now assessing valuations of stocks relative to expected growth. In some cases it is giving pause; in others it is spurring action.

We are so accustomed to looking at stocks and markets day by day that we sometimes miss the big trends as well as opportunities.

Remain cautious. The market is doing more chopping than declining in recent weeks, and because of that, a couple of good days on the upside could actually turn the intermediate-term trend up.