January is living up to its volatile reputation but there’s no doubt it’s begun to improve—the intermediate-term trend, which was negative for most everything out there, is back to neutral; the broad market is showing some rapid, intriguing improvement; and individual stocks have improved their standing, with some popping to new highs. To be clear, this isn’t a buying panic, but after a few weeks of tedious action that has brought sentiment down, we’re OK with gradually extending your line while remaining nimble. We’ll up our Market Monitor to a level 7 today.

This week’s list is a mixed bag, with everything from growth to turnarounds to commodity names. Our Top Pick looks like one of the leaders of a new group move after being in the doghouse for a couple of years. Try to get in on dips.

The market and some growth stocks held their own around year-end and popped to start the year, but last week was a bad one, with the sellers hitting most everything. There are tons of crosscurrents out there, and we’re starting to see some oversold measures really get stretched, so we’re not hibernating in a bear cave. But the bottom line is that the intermediate-term trend of most indexes, sectors and stocks are down so we continue to favor being cautious. Our Market Monitor now stands at a level 5.

This week’s list has something for everyone, with a lot of good setups for if/when the market does turn up. Our Top Pick has hung in there very well in recent weeks despite the market’s tumble.

The new year is off to a good start, with many of the areas that took lumps during December (namely the broad market and growth stocks) showing strength through three days—and, just as important to us, many individual stocks have perked up, with some resilient names pushing to new highs and others that dipped to support bouncing. That’s a good thing, but we’re also keeping in mind the fact that early January is often tricky (lots of sharp moves in both directions), that the intermediate-term trend of most indexes and measures is still neutral-to-negative and that there remain lots of crosscurrents among individual stocks, with some selling off while others strengthen. As we wrote above, we are encouraged and will nudge our Market Monitor up to a level 6, but, while this is a good first step, we want to see the action continue to conclude that the December air pockets are a thing of the past.

For the third straight issue, this week’s list is heavy on growth stocks, which remains a sign that big investors aren’t hunting for safety. Our Top Pick is a name we love fundamentally and whose stock has held up relatively well in recent weeks despite a huge run. If you enter, use a loose stop given its volatility.

First and foremost, this is our last issue of 2024—next Monday is one of our two weeks off all year—so we want to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a healthy and prosperous New Year. We’ll be back at it with a fresh Top Ten issue on January 6.

As for the market, things finished up with a nice rally last Friday, but that doesn’t undo the action of the prior couple of weeks as a whole, which saw many leaders take hits and many major indexes crack their intermediate-term uptrends. To be clear, we remain flexible, and if the buyers pounce on the recent weakness for a few days, we think there will be lots of “resumption” patterns among individual stocks. Still, given the near- and intermediate-term selling we’ve seen, we want to see buyers show up in a meaningful way first before putting a bunch of money back to work. We’ll leave our Market Monitor at a level 5.

This week’s list is once again very growth-y, which we do find encouraging. Our Top Pick showed exceptional power in November and has now rested for three weeks, offering up a solid entry point, though we advise starting small given the environment.

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.

From a top-down perspective, the market remains in good shape, but the real action in the past few weeks has concerned leading stocks, and today many hit air pockets, with plenty of short-term abnormal action (and some intermediate-term abnormal action, too). So where do we stand? One day doesn’t mean the party is over, and frankly, we see some stocks that are approaching decent risk/reward entries, but today is a red flag for some names and is a reminder to manage your portfolio (partial profits, respecting stops) and to aim for decent entries. We’re not panicking, but we’ll lower our Market Monitor to a level 7 and see how things go from here.

This week’s list has a nice mix, with some winners that have been resting for a few weeks alongside some names that have recently shown power. Our Top Pick is a name we’ve kept an eye on for a long time and is now beginning to emerge after a tough mid-year stretch.

Note: Heads up as our schedule for Top Ten is garbled this week and next. First, we’re going to try to shoot out a quick Movers and Shakers update on Wednesday since our offices will be closed on Friday, and next Monday is one of our two scheduled weeks off of the year (though we’ll send out a full M&S update on Friday as usual). We’ll be around if you have any questions, of course, but if we don’t hear from you, have a great Thanksgiving!

As for the market, the top-down action since the election has been volatile and somewhat disjointed due to crosscurrents, but the trends have remained up, and leading titles (especially on the growth side of the equation) have posted stunning gains. To be clear, the action remains very hot and heavy, with near-term sentiment elevated and many stocks extended to the upside, all of which is a reason to pick your spots on the buy side and to consider partial profits on some names that have gone wild. We’ll keep our Market Monitor at a level 8.

This week’s list has something for everyone, with names from a variety of sectors and themes showing strength. Our Top Pick is finally changing character with a powerful breakout last week.

Last week’s pullback in the major indexes was pretty disappointing, but when we took a look around at all the evidence this weekend nothing much had changed on an intermediate-term basis: Most leading stocks are acting fine, the trends are still pointed up for the major indexes and, while it’s been a bit more rotational of late, there are still plenty of fresher titles that are advancing. We’ll be watching everything going forward (including the still-steep uptrend in Treasury rates), but at this point, we remain optimistic. We’ll leave our Market Monitor at a level 8.

This week’s list is chock-full of growth-y names, many of them familiar ones. Our Top Pick is a big, liquid, well-sponsored e-commerce emerging blue chip that just catapulted out of a big base.

There were a few pre-election wobbles in the market, but last week’s action looks decisive, with many major indexes that had been capped below their summertime peaks bursting to new highs, while leading stocks went bananas, including many out-of-this-world moves on earnings. Now, to be fair, we’re still seeing some earnings duds, and the action is very hot and heavy, which raises the risk of some sort of near-term rug pull. Thus, it’s important to keep your feet on the ground—but overall, there’s no question the evidence is bullish and the buyers are control. We’re moving our Market Monitor back to a level 8 and could go higher if the buying pressures remain intense.

This week’s list is has something for everyone, with a couple of cyclical names sprinkled in among a batch of strong growth titles. Our Top Pick is showing great growth and just staged a solid breakout from a very tight area last week.

It’s fair to say the evidence has taken a small step back in recent days because the intermediate-term trend of the major indexes is essentially on the fence, because the broad market has also faded somewhat, and because we’re finally seeing some earnings-induced dents in strong stocks. Of course, the election has finally (almost) arrived, which could easily cause some hecticness in the days ahead—but also remove some uncertainty. Put it all together and we’re still bullish, but we did pull in our Market Monitor to a level 7 and will take it as it comes in the days ahead.

This week’s list has a pretty solid growth component to it, which we do find encouraging. For our Top Pick, we’ll go with a zinger that has a great story and a powerful chart that we think can go far.

All in all, the evidence remains unchanged: The major indexes are positive but not exactly powerful, with resistance (such as near 500 on QQQ) still capping many measures, but leadership remains intact, with strong stocks refusing to give much ground and fresh breakouts from the past month acting well. Of course, earnings season is still ongoing, and you can never rule out the market’s key leadership being dented or some abnormal action appearing. But you can always find something that could go wrong in the market—right now, the buyers are in control. We’ll keep our Market Monitor at a level 8.

This week’s list is very broad, with everything from industrials to real estate to true-blue growth stories. Our Top Pick is a pure cyclical name that just busted out of a long-term consolidation on giant volume.

It remains pretty much the same story out there as we’ve seen for at least three weeks, if not longer. First, when it comes to the top-down evidence, it’s solid, with the intermediate-term trend of most everything pointed up; second, looking at things from a bottoms-up perspective, the evidence is encouraging, as many fresher breakouts have emerged in the past month or so; and third is more of a heads up, as near-term sentiment is very elevated and earnings season for most leading titles is ramping up, so some tricky trading (volatility, especially among extended stocks) is possible. Thus, we’re staying flexible, but given the overall positive vibes, are leaving our Market Monitor at a level 8.

This week’s list actually has many big-cap titles but there’s plenty for everyone. Our Top Pick appears to have finally left behind a multi-year consolidation after its Q3 report. Ideally you can get in on modest weakness if the market dips.

It’s been another solid, encouraging week for the market, with the major indexes all sporting solid gains—the big-cap indexes were up 2% or while the broader indexes are in the black by a bit more than 1%.

After a tedious five-plus weeks in the market that saw most everything hit the skids, this week has been very encouraging, thanks in large part to the market’s reaction to Wednesday’s inflation report. On the week, the big-cap indexes are up 2% to 3% while the broader measures (which got hit hardest in the past month) are up 4.5% or so.

The year started out pretty well over the first two days (last week), but this week has been more of a downer, with the major indexes down a bit and with some leading growth stocks again coming under pressure. Going into Friday, most major indexes reversed early-week gains and are down 0.5% to 1% on the week and that doesn’t include what looks like a morning gap down following this morning’s jobs report.

Happy New Year! The market’s stance didn’t change much during the past couple weeks of 2024—big-cap indexes are trying to hang in there, but the vast majority of the market and growth stocks had a rough December. The equal-weight S&P 500, for instance, fell a whopping 6.6% on the month, and many growth measures were down about the same (if not a bit more).

First, a reminder that there will be no Top Ten issue next Monday—it’s one of our two weeks off all year—though we’ll send out a Movers & Shakers update next Friday. Being our last missive of 2024, we want to wish you and yours a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

==


As for the market, we’ve seen the Santa Claus rally kick in a bit in recent days—for the week as a whole, most every major index and growth measure is up by 1% to 2% on the week.

While the big-cap indexes were acting fine, we had been writing about an increasing number of yellow flags out there—it started with secondary measures like sentiment (which got buoyant in the weeks after the election), and early last week, we saw the first signs that some key leading stocks were coming under pressure. Indeed, we came into this week with our Market Monitor down to a level 6.

We had been writing about some of the secondary yellow flags that had been popping up of late, mainly due to the incredible rise in many growth stocks in both price (well above moving averages) and time (the biggest winners got going back in September), as well as near-term sentiment (getting giddy, not just with growth stocks but everything post-election).

It’s been a mixed week for the market, with the big-cap indexes doing well and many leading growth titles again showing strength, but the broad market and many sectors were sluggish (not awful, just down some) and we have started to see a few leaders here and there that have begun to wobble.

As we wrote on Monday, our offices will be closed on Friday for the long Thanksgiving weekend, but we wanted to shoot out a barebones Movers & Shakers today with some updated stops on our positions. There will be no issue of Top Ten next week (one of our two weeks off all year), but we will be back at it on Monday if you have any questions and will send out the normal Movers & Shakers next Friday (December 6). Have a great Thanksgiving!

For the major indexes, the post-election ups and downs continued this week, with the moonshot two weeks ago leading to a relatively uncomfortable dip last week, but that led to a nice rebound coming into today, with most indexes up in the 1.5% to 2% range.

After a moonshot among most major indexes following the election and a second Fed rate cut, the market retrenched a bit this week, as the Fed hinted more rate cuts are a coin flip, as Treasury rates picked up again, and as some profit taking set in. The big-cap indexes are off a bit more than 1%, though the broad market and certain growth measures have pulled in more.

Last week, we saw the market begin to hesitate and leading stocks begin to take on some water on some earnings reports—combined with good-not-great action from the major indexes in the weeks before, that put the overall intermediate-term trend on the fence.

Our Cabot Top Ten Trader’s market timing system consists of two parts—one based on the action of three select, growth-oriented market indexes, and the other based on the action of the fast-moving stocks Cabot Top Ten features.

Cabot Top Ten Trader is meant to be something where we do the first four or five steps of the process for you and then let you take it from there.

Guidelines to improve your investment results with Cabot Top Ten Trader.

By following thse guidelines, we’ve always been able to get on board relatively early in each new bull cycle.

The Cabot Top Ten Trader system evaluates price and relative performance of 8,000 charts each week to select the strongest momentum stocks.

A brief guide on using the Cabot Top Ten Trader.

If you follow these rules, you’re sure to boost your portfolio’s results.

This is a collection of tips on stock chart reading, something that’s key to Mike Cintolo’s growth stock methodology, but something few individual investors (and even professional investors) understand too well.

Here some of the most common questions Mike Cintolo gets from the readers of Cabot Top Ten Trader.