A few weeks ago, at the annual Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago, two investing icons debated the merits of value versus growth. On the value side was Rob Arnott, founder and head of Research Affiliates, with Cathie Wood, founder and head of ARK Management,...
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Last week, we wrote about how lower quality, in both home appliances and tangible money, debases value and is a form of inflation. Today’s note includes some of our current views on inflation and capital markets, and what investors can do to help inflation’s...
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Since the marijuana sector peaked in February, the Global Cannabis Stock Index has lost 50% of its value. That’s the cost of investing in hot young growth industries. But the fundamentals of the industry remain exceedingly attractive, so there’s no question that eventually, long...
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Across almost the entire length of the yield curve, interest rates are ticking up. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield reached 1.53% and may be headed back toward its December 2019 rate of about 1.90%. In an economy that is showing rapid growth, with well...
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It’s not news that the stock market has been sloppy lately. After the steady march upward to a doubling of the S&P 500 from the early 2020 low, and a 33% increase from year-end 2019 before the pandemic, one can hardly be disappointed the...
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After a stunningly strong market so far this year, with the S&P 500 producing a 20% total return through Monday, the slow grind-down of most stocks since early September has seemed interminable. The 1,100 largest stocks in our 3,000-stock database have declined only in...
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This week, we are rolling forward our valuation comments – generally dropping our valuation based on 2021 estimates, where appropriate, while adding commentary based on estimates for 2023. Most analysts project that all of their companies will have higher earnings in future years, we...
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In the two weeks since my last update, a lot has happened, fundamentally. We’ve had the Cabot Smarter Investing, Greater Profits Conference, from which I’ve excerpted a couple of tables below, and we’ve received second-quarter reports from the final seven of our recommended not...
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The Cabot Undervalued Stocks Advisor is on vacation this week, recharging the batteries for what could be a very interesting September and fourth quarter in the financial markets. As such, this week’s edition will be abbreviated in length, although we include our Cisco earnings commentary full...
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Some time ago, there was a television show with the above title that pulled viewers back into the 1970s. It used that earlier era to create a somewhat unique vibe that inadvertently highlighted how much has changed in our world over the decades.
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Just reading those words, “climate change,” is almost certain to light up emotions. Regardless of one’s opinions on the degree of urgency and which of a very wide range of proposed policies and actions should be taken, how could words about the end the...
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Waiting for the Uptrend
The father of value investing, Benjamin Graham, once noted that in the long run, the stock market functions like a weighing machine, assessing the substance of a company and reflecting its true value over time, but in the short run, resembles...
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The stock market reached yet another record high on Monday, but it just doesn’t seem the same as earlier records. Investors (and everyone else) is starting to wonder if Covid is now endemic – an inherent component of everyday life. Will cases surge the...
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Last week, we wrote about how the damp Boston-area weather matched the soggy stock market. Pressing our literary luck today, the market is following another New England weather meme: “if you don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes.”
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In the Boston area, we’ve had nearly 8 inches of rain so far this month. This 0.7 inches-per-day average compares to the 0.6 inches-per-day average for a monsoon rainforest, the type found in the tropics along the equator. Sounds a lot like the mood...
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Marijuana Industry Trends
In the early years of marijuana legalization in the U.S., when the main action was in Colorado and the three West Coast states, there were no major multistate operators (MSOs). Instead, hundreds of small-time businesses sprang up, and in the competitive that...
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In our continuing series on deciding how many positions to hold in a stock portfolio, let’s borrow a page from Major League Baseball (MLB). The methods that these teams use managing their players can be applied to investment portfolios.
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Last week, we started our multi-part discussion on position sizes, and looked at the benefits and weaknesses of an equal-weighted approach. Let’s look at perhaps the most common weighting used by fund managers: relative weighting.
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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, what...
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The market seems to have settled into complacency. We’re in a period after first-quarter earnings reports and government statistics indicate a surging economy, yet investors rightfully wonder if or when the Fed will raise interest rates and are starting to consider what happens the...
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