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The Cabot offices are in a beautiful brick building, originally constructed for the City of Salem as a branch library, using WPA money, in 1933-1934.

The market’s trends were looking pretty iffy until better-than-feared inflation data came out on Tuesday (PPI) and Wednesday (CPI).

Those data releases finally gave Treasuries a boost and knocked the 10-year yield down from last week’s level of 4.8%, which was the highest since November of 2023 (the 10-year yield hit 4.74% last April, which was close, but not quite as high as last week).

As I have mentioned a time or three, I love numbers.

In today’s note, we discuss a flurry of key news developments for several of our portfolio positions, including Baxter International (BAX), B2Gold (BTG), Intel (INTC), Polaris (PII), Solventum (SOLV), Viatris (VTRS) and Vodaphone (VOD).

We’re adding two new stocks to the portfolio, providing us with exposure to the white-hot silver mining sector as well as the seasonally strong food services industry.

We’ll also discuss some catalysts for the under-the-radar restaurant group, including three very attractive potential turnaround plays.

Markets have been sideways in the past month, affected by wars, upcoming elections, and analysts see-sawing on the possibility of a Fed rate reduction. The Federal Reserve is meeting this week, and predictions for a rate cut this year are all over the board: none, one, or two.

I expect we’ll have more volatility as we near the fall election cycle.

In the meantime, economic stats look good! Manufacturing continues to climb, jobs are still being added at a rapid pace (272,000 vs. the estimate of 190,000), and the unemployment rate—at 3.9%—remains steady.

Amidst a bearish stock market, we’re adding one big-dividend stock to our portfolios today. Lacking much stock market excitement and lower-risk near-term capital gain opportunities, I decided to post some corporate news and price action on a couple stocks—not featured in our portfolios, but still of interest to many investors.

Today, I tackle one of the questions I get most frequently: What is the difference between Cabot Options Trader and Cabot Options Trader Pro?

The S&P 500 index had a nice breakout last week. I consider the move to be the beginning of a trend that could easily last for many months. Along the way, there will be pullbacks that will provide good buying opportunities.

The markets had a very good week, and so far, we are also seeing momentum in the first couple of trading days this week. These upward moves have taken the Dow Jones Industrial Average to just about where we started at the beginning of 2023.