Cabot Wealth Network

I’m eating a lot less meat these days. I don’t eat a lot of meat anyway, but do occasionally enjoy a hamburger, spaghetti, or chicken on the grill. And when ground beef went to $6.99 a pound, and chicken to $10 for three breasts (instead of $3.99), I began to reduce my meat purchases. And now with ground beef more than $9 a pound, and chicken more than $6, I’m pretty much a vegetarian these days. I haven’t thought about grocery stocks for a while.

Patriotism is an ever-evolving concept in America. What exactly does it mean to be patriotic? Depends on who you ask. Thankfully, consumer research firm Brand Keys has been asking that question for 25 years. As their name suggests, however, their interest in patriotism is focused purely on brands: Which are America’s most patriotic brands? That’s the question it’s been asking consumers in its annual survey.

I am a Churchill nut. My office space is littered with Winston Churchill books, and I have read Churchill’s six-volume, two-million-word The Second World War three times. The best biography of Winston Churchill is actually one of the shortest: Churchill by Paul Johnson. At the end of the book, Johnson lays out lessons from Churchill’s life that can also be applied to investing.

The biggest investing stories of the month, from renewed scrutiny of AI spending to shifting Federal Reserve expectations, rising bond yields, geopolitical tensions, and one of the most anticipated IPOs in history (producing the world’s first trillionaire), shared a common theme. Investors were forced to reassess assumptions that had become widely accepted. That’s healthy. We need moments when excitement gives way to analysis and narratives are tested against reality.

The Stockholm Stock Exchange, also known as Nasdaq Stockholm, is the primary securities exchange of the Nordic countries. Founded in 1863, it is also a key hub for European capital markets. It is beautifully situated in an historic square where you can feel the history wash over you. In America, the Nordic region is badly understood as a “socialist heaven” with high taxes and high debt. This was true in the 1990s, but the Swedes learned from this experiment and shifted gears.

We recently wrote about why insider buying matters more than insider selling, and the distinction is important. Insider selling may garner some attention, but it’s not a meaningful investing signal. Executives and directors sell stock for all kinds of personal reasons that may have nothing to do with the company itself. They may be diversifying, paying taxes, funding a major purchase or raising cash for family needs.

The energy sector has commanded more than its fair share of headlines in recent months, with crude oil prices being a major focus of investors since the start of the U.S./Israel-Iran war. And while oil prices have sharply declined lately, that market is still very much a talking point among investors right now. Meanwhile, another key fuel—natural gas—is being strangely ignored in comparison.

This remains a “buy weakness” market. Sure, there are plenty of reasons for concern – which is almost always the case. But the positives continue to outweigh the negatives. So, I’m moderately bullish on stocks, particularly the ones that insiders favor. Here are six factors that are shaping my perspective on the market, three positive and three negative. Let’s start with the three negatives.

It’s been a very solid past couple of years for the market, and of course, things have picked up in the past two months (despite the latest wobble), with high-profile AI-related stocks going wild and some high-profile IPOs. Despite that, we’re not seeing a rush of speculation and euphoria that typically comes with hot markets.

A month ago, I wrote that the Federal Reserve was likely to shift from an easing bias to a tightening bias at the June 17 meeting. That wasn’t the conventional view at the time. The market was still giving the idea of a rate hike relatively low odds, and many investors were more focused on when the Fed might return to cutting. But I had a different take that I shared with Cabot Wealth Daily readers in this article. Why?