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In the December Issue of Cabot Early Opportunities we look at five companies growing nicely and with share prices that have held up reasonably well in recent months.

Our top pick this month is a small-cap biopharma stock that just made a timely acquisition this week. I also feature a potential biotech superstar, an emerging MedTech name, a solar energy specialist and an online retailer that we’ve seen before.

As always, there should be something for everyone in this month’s Issue!

The simplest reason is an imbalance of supply and demand; if supply is insufficient to meet demand, as it often is in a brand new industry, prices rise. That’s one reason marijuana stocks have been rising, overall, for the past few years.

I’m excited about all of the recent price action in the stock market! For many months—or several years?—investors’ stock portfolios alternated between treading water and surviving market corrections. Finally, the markets seem to have been set free, adding bullish stock movements into the mix.

The market has been in something of a takeoff or lockout rally, but near-term, we’re finally seeing some profit taking set in; coming into today, the Nasdaq was 9% above its 50-day line, so some wobbles are to be expected. Even so, we’re not changing our advice any at this point—we like to play the odds, and right now the odds favor (a) near-term trickiness but also (b) that pullbacks should generally lead to higher prices. We’ll leave our Market Monitor at a level 7 and see how it goes.

While growth could be set for a dip, the broadening of the rally is seeing more non-growth names actually show strength. Our Top Pick is one of many cyclical-type stocks that, after a big hiccup in March with the banking worries, has come alive amidst a vacuum of selling pressure. Dips of a couple of points would be tempting.

Every three to six months, I will revisit some of the important themes and strategies used by Cabot Options Trader since I became the editor.

Every three to six months, I will revisit some of the important themes and strategies used by Cabot Options Trader since I became the editor.

Current Market Outlook


Our title last week was “What Happens from Here Will Tell the Tale.” And so the market’s impressive and immediate snapback from the two-day Brexit decline is a good sign that the bears just aren’t able to take control of this market, even when obvious bad news hits. That said, while the panic low from last Monday should hold, we can’t say the bulls are in control, either, as all the major indexes are still stuck below longtime resistance levels dating back to early 2015. Altogether, we’ll nudge our Market Monitor back up a notch, but what we’re really looking for is a decisive move to new highs before getting bullish. For now, you should hold your top performers, but keeping new buys relatively small and holding some cash is also prudent.

This week’s list has a bunch of mid-cap names that are showing excellent strength—they could be among your leaders if the bulls step up to the plate. Our Top Pick is Beacon Roofing (BECN), a growing play on housing and construction, which may actually get a boost as interest rates plunge.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
TAL Education (XRS)	0.00	60-62.5	56-57
TransUnion (TRU)	83.09	32.5-33.5	30-30.5
NetEase, Inc. (NTES)	0.00	181-185	169-170
Newfield Exploration (NFX)	0.00	41.5-43	38-39
Dycom Industries (DY)	0.00	85-88	79-80
DOC (DOC)	0.00	20-21	19-19.5
Beacon Roofing (BECN)	0.00	45-46.5	42.5-43
Activision Blizzard, Inc. (ATVI)	0.00	38.5-40	36-36.5
AG (AG)	0.00	13.5-14.5	12-13
Abiomed (ABMD)	0.00	106-109	98.5-100

Current Market Outlook


A week ago, it looked like the market had finally left behind its up-and-down pattern, but earnings season had other ideas—the major indexes took on some water, and many individual stocks were hit hard after so-so quarterly reports. That said, it’s not the end of the world; most indexes are holding their 50-day lines and there are a bunch of stocks either holding their own, or still within multi-month launching pads. We are respecting last week’s selling by knocking our Market Monitor back down a notch, and we do think it’s best to be very selective when doing new buying. The real key will be the next few days and whether the market can hold important support levels.

In the meantime, we’re impressed that we’re still finding solid growth ideas from a variety of fields. Our Top Pick is Equinix (EQIX), a steadily-growing data center operation whose REIT status offers tax advantages and the prospect of big dividends.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX)	0.00	215-220	200-203
Oshkosh (OSK)	95.04	52.5-54.5	47.5-48.5
NetEase, Inc. (NTES)	0.00	124-128	114-116
JetBlue Airways Corporation (JBLU)	0.00	20.5-21.5	18.5-19
Incyte Corporation (INCY)	76.98	97.5-102.5	93-94
Equinix, Inc. (EQIX)	547.73	252-257	233-236
CyberArk (CYBR)	111.74	66-68	57-58
Ctrip.com International Ltd. (CTRP)	34.94	62-65	57-58
Bluebird Bio (BLUE)	0.00	134-140	118-120
Ambarella (AMBA)	52.79	73-75	67-68

Last Tuesday’s hot inflation report, along with Thursday evening’s earnings warning from FedEx, led to a terrible week for stocks, which keeps the negative top-down evidence in place: Both the intermediate- and longer-term trends of the market, as well as most stocks and sectors, remains pointed south. On the positive side, we still see many stocks doing a solid job of holding their own, and sentiment is firmly on the bearish side of the fence, and both of those represent dry tinder—if something goes right in the world (what a concept!), we think there’s a chance of a really solid rally. But bear markets are all about patience; we’ll leave our Market Monitor at a level 4.


This week’s list has another batch of resilient stocks, and our Top Pick has been bottoming out for months, and a decisive push higher should be buyable.

Current Market Outlook


The market found some buying support after this morning’s gap lower, as some investors believe the Fed might stay on hold for longer considering job growth has slowed. That was good to see, but, daily wiggles aside, the intermediate-term trend remains sideways, which means staying selective, holding some cash and honoring your stops is paramount. There are still plenty of stocks working and a few set-up nicely, and that’s where your focus should be.

This week’s Top Ten presents a bunch of current winners; all have held up well during the market’s recent selloff. Our Top Pick is Carmax (KMX), which popped out of a nice, flat base on earnings last week.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
58.com (WUBA)	0.00	49-51	45-46
United Therapeutics (UTHR)	0.00	170-175	160-162
Medivation (MDVN)	0.00	125-130	116-117
CarMax (KMX)	0.00	72-75	67-68
Horizon Therapeutics (HZNP)	49.89	24.5-26	21-22
Humana Inc. (HUM)	0.00	175-179	158-162
Diamondback Energy (FANG)	0.00	75-78	67-69
E*Trade Financial (ETFC)	0.00	26.5-28	24-25
D. R. Horton (DHI)	66.55	27.5-28.5	25.5-26
Cirrus Logic Inc. (CRUS)	0.00	31.5-33.5	29.5-30

There is no perfect method of investing in stocks. What really matters is matching the system’s pros and cons with your own personality. I base this on meeting and corresponding with hundreds of other investors.

Another Fed rate hike is on the near horizon. Before it happens, you should buy these three stocks in this red-hot sector.

With the market now down 1.25% on the day, some of our buy-writes are reaching, or breaking, our break-even levels. If this selloff continues, we may need to exit or adjust these positions. If we adjust our buy writes, we will likely close the call we’re short and sell another call, which will further lower our cost basis.

In most professional and personal endeavors, there are dozens if not hundreds of decisions to make. Manage a tech company? You need to decide who to hire/promote/fire, what responsibilities to give them, how much to pay them (base and bonus), resolve conflicting agendas, decide what products to promote, approve technical and strategic changes to each product or service, check quality control, help customers, set pricing … the list is essentially endless. Even a simple home landscaping project involves a long list of decisions: how much to spend, do it yourself or hire out, what to plant and where, and so on.

After a huge run, last week definitely showed some short-term character changes for many stocks, especially leading titles, with some flashing legitimate abnormal action; even among the top-down evidence, we’ve seen sluggishness, with the broad market showing wear and tear as sentiment remains relatively buoyant. That said, there are still plenty of stocks either holding their own or still doing well, too, including some growth-y themes that are seeing fresh buying of late, a sign big investors aren’t going into hibernation. When you put it all together, we do think paring back some and seeing how things play out makes sense, but it’s as important as ever to take things on a stock-by-stock basis. We dropped our Market Monitor to a level 6 and will leave it there today, but we’re flexible and could ratchet it higher if growth stocks start to rebound strongly.

This week’s list has a wide assortment of names—but nearly all of them are growth-oriented, which we take as a good sign. Our Top Pick is a mega-cap that staged an awesome breakout on earnings last week. Near-term wobbles are possible, but we think big investors will support any dip.

It’s now been a couple of months since the market’s April low, but instead of a firm uptrend that’s telling you big investors are diving in or adding to positions, we’re seeing lots of split action. Whether this is a fresh launching pad for most stocks or near-term toppy action that will lead to a summer slump is anyone’s guess—right now, we’re just following along with the evidence, which means holding and targeting stocks that are fresher and under accumulation, raising stops and dumping names that crack and holding a chunk of cash given the sloppiness seen in the broad market. We’ll leave our Market Monitor at a level 7, but once again, it’s mostly about what you own.

From solar to chips to biotech to aerospace, this week’s list is another that has something for everyone. Our Top Pick is a turnaround-type chip player whose stock has decisively blasted off in late April as business is set to turn up.

Our portfolio companies wrapped up their reporting season this week, which means I have a chance to come up for air after an intense couple of weeks.

Somewhat as expected we had some nice winners, but also some losers too. It’s just that kind of market; and while I wish we could have had 100% of our stocks post terrific performance after reporting, that’s just not realistic.

Current Market Outlook


After establishing three bottoms in three months—with each bottom higher than the last—the broad market blasted higher last week, pushing our Market Monitor back into the green zone. But we’re not recommending indexes, we’re recommending stocks, and these stocks are not bouncing off bottoms, they’re breaking out to new highs! Furthermore, a lot of these market leaders are new names that are not familiar to investors—which means there is far more potential buying power than selling power in the stocks.

There are many great growth stories in the bunch, with many possibilities of huge long-term gains in revolutionary businesses, and our Top Pick is one of them; it’s Coupa Software (COUP), a small but fast-growing company whose spending-management software addresses a huge potential market.

Stock Name	Price	Buy Range	Loss Limit
AAXN (AAXN)	87.11	51-55	45-48
Coupa Software (COUP)	262.20	51-54	46.5-48.5
Green Dot (GDOT)	85.11	70-72	63-65
Guess (GES)	0.00	23-24.5	20.5-21.5
Petrobras (PBR)	14.78	15-16	13.8-14.8
Pure Storage (PSTG)	25.64	22-23.5	19.5-20
Teladoc, Inc. (TDOC)	127.95	44-49	39-41
Tenet Healthcare (THC)	0.00	30.5-32	28-29.5
Trade Desk (TTD)	468.02	71-76	65-68
Twilio (TWLO)	183.39	50.5-55	46.5-47.5

MLPs are easy to buy and sell; they trade on major exchanges just like regular stocks, and usually cost the same to trade. But how do you invest in them? There are restrictions on what kind of enterprises can receive MLP treatment: their primary business (generating about 90% or revenues) has...

We include our comments on earnings from Macy’s (M) and Kohl’s (KSS). Duluth Holdings (DLTH) will report on August 31.

Earlier this week, due to circumstances beyond our control, we suspended our rating on shares of Kopin Corporation (KOPN). This means that the shares have no rating: They are not a Buy, Sell, Hold or any other rating, but are in essence unrated. We apologize for this unusual situation.