5 Stocks to BUY in September | Investor Weekly Playbook

Welcome back to yet another episode of the Weekly Investors Playbook. September is here and if history is any indication, investors may want to buckle up. September has historically been the worst month of the year for the stock market. And it's really not that close. Since 1950, the S&P 500 has averaged a decline of roughly 0.6% during the month. And September is one of only two down months for the year. But here's what's interesting. We're entering September with the S&P 500 up nearly 13%. Nvidia, they just delivered another monster earnings report and inflation remains stubbornly above the Fed's target. And this coming week, we're getting one of the most important job reports of the year. So today, we're going to build our playbook for September and the week ahead. We'll look at where the markets stand, why September has historically been so difficult, the latest economic data, what Nvidia's earnings told us about the AI boom, the five reports I'm watching this week, and then I'll give you five stocks to consider buying in the month of September. So, before we jump in, do me a huge favor and show your appreciation by smashing that like button down below and subscribe to the channel. And while you're down there, comment what is your year-to-ate performance so far in your portfolio. And with that being said, let's get into this week's investor weekly playbook. Let's begin by taking a check on the market and look at our weekly market dashboard. And this week, we broke out of the red that we have been seeing in the past weeks for the most part. But let's see how long that lasts. To end the week, the NASDAQ, well, it led the way, up 0.9% and up 13.6% on the year, followed then by the S&P 500, which was up.5% on the week and up 12.6% on the year. And then we had the Dow Jones also up.5% on the week and up a little over 11% on the year. But what struggled this week? Well, that was small caps. And that is very telling. The popular Russell 2000 was down 1.5% on the week alone, but still leads the major indices on a year-to- date basis where it's up just shy of 20%. From a sector perspective, well, we saw four sectors that were in the green, led by technology this week, which was up 1.8%. And that obviously had a lot to do with Nvidia followed then by communication services which was up 1.6% and financials up 1.1%. The lagging sectors this week, well that was healthcare down 2%, energy down nearly 2% and industrials down 1.7%. So what is most telling about all of this? Well, under the surface we are seeing a bit of a rotation. We have seen two straight weeks of negative performance in the small caps and that money seems to be flowing back into the MAG 7. In the past month alone, the MAG 7 ETF, stock ticker MAGS or MAGS, it's up 10%. And most of that came early part of the month, not after the big Nvidia move. The MAG 7 is becoming a safety net again for investors. We'll see how long that lasts because when investors tighten up and get concerned at least about the near- term, holding small caps is not something that's in your favor. And we have seen this turn red for two straight weeks. As I mentioned, not saying we're going to sell everything right now and sell all of your small caps, but it's becoming a trend and something to watch as we move into September. All right, before we move into the September effect, let me tell you about something I've been working on for all of this year, and I'm super excited about it. It's my investing accelerator program. This is my very own self-paced investing course of what I like to call my a toz of investing. The investing accelerator starts with a basic investing module and we build upon it for 12 straight chapters or weeks each holding a number of different videos. In total, the program has over 40 videos covering macroeconomics, assessing the financials of a company, valuation, stock charts, and most important, stock options. Anyone that joins the program, you gain lifetime access to the videos. Meaning, anytime we update a video or add new videos, you gain access. I open this up to those in my community in the month of August. And now, I'm opening it up to everyone. And for the month of September, I'm going to run a special where you can get 10% off this program. Check out the pin comment down below for more info. All right, with that being said, now let's talk about the September effect. Historically, this has been the weakest month of the calendar since 1950. Again, the S&P 500 down 6% during the month of September. Even more interesting, since that same time, September has finished positive only 44% of the time. It's the only month with a historical positivity rate below 50%. And I want to emphasize something here. Seasonality is not destiny. September doesn't automatically mean stocks fall. This is historical probability, not a prediction. There have obviously been plenty of September where stocks performed extremely well. But as investors, I think we should at least understand the historical tendency. So why is September historically weak, you might ask? Well, there's a couple of reasons. At least these are my thoughts. Trading volume begins normalizing after the summer months. Institutional investors return from vacation. Kids are back in school. And managers look to reposition their portfolios. And that leads to what I believe is the biggest reason. It's called tax loss harvesting. Money managers now have eight plus months of data in terms of profits and losses. And good money managers, whether you're paying someone or whether you're managing your own portfolio, they want to limit tax liability. Thus, they start preparing portfolios for the final quarter of the year. Selling winners and equally offsetting those gains by selling losers. Regardless, in both instances, the money manager is selling. The increase in selling pressure increases selling volume and that's what produces these negative results during the month of September. So with that being said, which sectors actually work or could work in the month of September? And this is where things kind of get a little more interesting. Even when the S&P 500 struggles, there are usually winners underneath the surface. Over the last 25 years, the average difference between the best and the worst performing industry groups during the month of September has been roughly 20 percentage points. So instead of saying September is bad, sell everything, I'm asking where is capital rotating. Traditionally, defensive areas can become more attractive when investors become risk conscious. But I wouldn't just b blindly buy utilities or staples simply because it's September. In fact, current sector fundamentals are arguably more interesting in industrials, materials, and healthcare. So, before we move to our economic check, we have to take a moment to talk a little bit about Nvidia and the earnings that they just reported because this was one of the most important earnings reports of the quarter. And Nvidia absolutely crushed it. Revenues came in at 96.2 billion, more than doubling year-over-year. Data center revenues came in at 89 billion, up an unbelievable 117%. Adjusted EPS that came in at $222 across all metrics, beating expectations. And then gross margins remained an incredible 75%. But here's the number I care more about. Forward guidance. Nvidia expects approximately $108 billion of revenue in the next quarter. Think about that. The company is putting up a over 100 billion in sales for a quarter. That's three months. These companies here that I'm about to list, they don't even have a market cap. Meaning they're not even valued at hundred billion. Companies like Robin Hood, Target, Bloom Energy, SoFi, Cororeweave. Pretty incredible to think about. And that guidance number that doesn't assume any data center compute revenue from China. And that is remarkable. So obviously the results were great for Nvidia. The stock jumped roughly 10%. And if you were part of my options community, you know we had multiple trades playing the upside heading into earnings. And that generated profits of more than $1,000. That's if you only had one contract for each of those trades. Option Edge subs are profiting month in and month out. But that's all about Nvidia. But I think there's an even bigger story out there. I wasn't simply looking at Nvidia as one stock. I was using Nvidia as a health check for the entire AI investment stack and the report gave us another major piece of evidence. AI infrastructure spending remains extraordinarily strong. Jensen Wong said the AI infrastructure buildout is at full steam and Vera Rubin is already in full production. That's important for the likes of Taiwan Semi because somebody has to manufacture these advanced chips. Or look at a company like AMD, another company I own and like a lot because it reinforces the enormous size of the accelerator market. Or look at a company like Broadcom because hyperscalers continue investing in networking and custom silicon. Or Credo and Marll and Credo reports this week because larger AI clusters require increasingly sophisticated connectivity. Or a company like Micron because AI accelerators require enormous amounts of HBM or memory. So from my perspective, Nvidia didn't just report good Nvidia earnings. It strengthened the broader AI infrastructure thesis. Now there are obviously still risks and that does not mean September will be good for technology. In fact, I believe it will be volatile. Margins are expected to come down modestly next quarter and memory costs are something investors need to continue to watch. But nothing in the report suggests to me that AI infrastructure spending is falling off a cliff or really even remotely slowing. quite the opposite. So, knowing that, build yourself a watch list of stocks that you like and at what prices you should be buying them at. And if you don't know the answer to that, you should probably join the investing accelerator program so you can go through my step-by-step checklist for quality and valuation. All right, so now what I want to do is leave AI behind and talk more about the economy because you can have great companies in your portfolio, but you need a sound economy that will support those companies. And that is why I walk you through this section every week. So with that, we got several important economic reports last week and collectively they painted a pretty interesting picture. Let's begin with PCE inflation, which was a massive one last week, which is the Fed's preferred inflation gauge. Headline PCE came in at 3.7% year-over-year. That's actually up from 3.6% the prior month. Core PCE, which I pay more attention to, came in at 3.3%. Essentially unchanged from the most prior month. So, from a Fed's perspective, inflation isn't exploding higher, but it's also not moving convincingly toward their stated 2% goal. And that's why the possibility of a rate hike remains a potential possibility. And after this past week's PCE report and the Jackson Hole event that took place to close the week, odds have once again flipped towards a rate hike during the coming September meeting with 60% expecting a hike to 40% remaining put in terms of rates. Just a week ago, those odds were completely flipped. But as I continue to say, opinions on this flip on a weekly basis. So don't let one report or one data point force you into big changes in your portfolio. However, a rate hike is still one of the biggest risks to the market in general. All right. Next up on the economic checklist is going to be GDP. Second quarter real GDP, which we got finalized numbers this week, and that showed it growing at an annualized rate of 1.5%. That's down from 2.1% in the first quarter. At first glance, that doesn't look all that great. In fact, it looks like an economy that is slowing. But if we dig deeper, real final sales to private domestic purchasers increased 4.2%. Which in fact is the highest we've seen since Q1 of 2023. That's basically consumer spending plus private fixed investment. The calculation takes out a lot of the volatile data, and it helps answer the following question. How strong is actual demand from US consumers and private businesses? And I actually think that tells us something very important. Underlying private sector demand remains much stronger than headline GDP number suggests. So again, we're getting these weird economic combinations. Growth hasn't collapsed. Employment hasn't collapsed, but inflation remains sticky. That's exactly what makes the Federal Reserve's jobs so difficult. Now, let's quickly turn our attention to jobs, which every week we get the weekly and continuing jobless claims. Well, initial jobless claims, they came in at 203,000. That's down 4,000 from previous week's reading. That was around 207 and below the 208,000 estimate for the week. Still historically low. We're simply not seeing widespread layoffs in these numbers. And that's going to make Friday's upcoming jobs report even more interesting. And another piece of news we got was consumer sentiment. And again, this is giving us soft data, which is more surveys on how consumers feel about the economy, feel about inflation. And the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index fell to 51.7. That's down from 55.2 the prior month. That's roughly a 6% monthly decline and about 11% below last year. Remember, above 50 is good, but we're barely there. And the reasons matter. Consumers remain worried about inflation, purchasing power, and gas prices. And broader economic uncertainty also remains a threat, but also this is soft data, so I don't want to put too much focus on it. So to wrap up our economic checkup, we looked at inflation, still too high. GDP, we saw mixed results. The labor market, it seems like it's on solid footing. And the consumer, well, it's weakening sentiment. And that's the economic setup entering the month of September. All right, so before we keep going again, if you're enjoying this weekly investor playbook series, show your appreciation by smashing that like button down below. But what I want to do now is quickly look at the week ahead. And this week is all about employment and economic activity. And the schedule's packed. Tuesday, we get ISM manufacturing and the jolts report. So for ISM manufacturing, again, we are looking for a reading above 50, which generally signals expansion. If we get below 50, that signals contraction. I'm particularly interested in new orders, employment, prices paid because I want to know whether manufacturing activity is strengthening or not and whether inflationary pressures are continuing to build. Then we also get the jolts report which this is going to look into jobs. This tells us how many job openings is exist across the econ economy because if business managers are wanting to hire more, they're listing more jobs, that's usually a pretty good sign. I want to see whether businesses are still actively looking for workers or not or whether the labor demand is starting to weaken. Then we move to Wednesday where we get the ADP report. Again, this is the private employment report. I don't treat this ADP report as a perfect predic predictor of what the Friday jobs report will come, but again, it's another data point to consider. Thursday though, we get ISM services and this is extremely important. Remember services account for roughly 2/3 of US economic activity and July services PMI that came in at 54.1 indicating continued expansion although input costs remain elevated. So Thursday I'll be watching business activity, new orders, employment and especially prices paid. So if services remain strong while prices continue rising, that's exactly the combination that could keep the Fed worried about inflation. And then Friday is the big one. That's the jobs report. This is probably the most important economic report of the week. We'll get non-farm payrolls. We're going to get insights into the unemployment rate, average hourly earnings, and then labor force participation. And also revisions to previous months, which is actually more important than this month's headline number and often overlooked by investors. And here's why this matters so much. The market is increasingly debating whether the Federal Reserve may need to raise rates to fight inflation. A very strong jobs report combined with sticky inflation. Inflation that is albeit slowly strengthening that could strengthen the case for yet another rate hike. A weaker report though could complicate things. So Friday morning could be a major market mover. All right, now let's get to the juicy stuff you're likely waiting for. My five stocks to consider buying for the month of September. And I think this list is especially interesting. There isn't one technology stock on it. There are some that could be considered technology companies and have dealings in the tech sector, but no tech sector specific stock. That wasn't intentional. I didn't sit down and say I need to avoid technology this month. These are simply five opportunities that stood out to me. We've got e-commerce, digital advertising, ride sharing, utilities, and international growth among others. So, with that, let's jump right into our first stock, which is going to be Marcato Libre, stock ticker Mi. This is a name that I've really liked and really started pushing back at the start of June when I published a video titled I'm buying every share I can. And in that video, I covered Marcato Libre. Since that video, shares are up nearly 20%. This is one of those companies I think investors can easily misunderstand. People call Marcato Libre the Amazon of Latin America, and I understand the comparison. I often use it myself, but I actually think that underells the business because they often only speak of the e-commerce side of things when it comes to Amazon. As we know, Amazon, my second largest holding, is much more than an e-commerce company. It's increasingly Amazon, plus a PayPal-like company, plus a bank and a logistics infrastructure company, all for Latin America. And this region has intrigued even the likes of Amazon who's moving into it. You have Marcato Libre, the e-commerce marketplace. Marcato Pago, the fintech ecosystem, credit, payments, advertising, logistics, and each part strengthens the others. Someone buys something from Marcato Libre. They pay through Marcato Pago. The merchant uses Marcato's logistics network. The merchant advertises through Marcato ads. Potentially, they use Marcato credit. That's an ecosystem. So, why the interest in Latin America for me? Well, for starters, the structural opportunity remains enormous. E-commerce penetration still has plenty of room for growth. Digital payments has room for growth. Financial inclusion room for growth. Online advertising room for growth. And Marcato Libre has already built tremendous scale across the region and it's expanding. That's exactly what I look for in a compounder. But what I also like, it diversifies me outside of the US. a great business operating inside a market that can continue expanding for years to come. Jumping over to my proprietary stock investors edge website available to all subscribers inside my community, you can see the company receives a very strong edge score of 82, exceptionally strong on future growth and financial health in particular. The average 12-month price target for analysts is 2256, implying 15% upside from current levels. So that's all great, but it doesn't come without risk. Currency volatility matters. Latin America economies can be unpredictable. Competition remains intense. But when I look out over the next 5 plus years, I see multiple ways this company can become significantly larger. And that's why Melly is on this month's list. Now, let's move to stock number two, which is going to be Apploven, stock ticker A. Now, this one is going to sound strange after I just told you that there aren't any technology stocks. Apploving is actually officially classified as a communication services company, not a tech company. But let's be clear, this is absolutely an AIdriven growth company. And it's a great example of AI actually creating measurable economic value. So let me explain what AppLovven does. Apploven helps advertisers find customers. That's the simplest explanation. Its advertising platform uses machine learning and AI to determine who should an advertisement be seen by, when should they see it, how much should an advertiser pay, how likely is that customer to convert. And this is exactly the type of AI application I love. Businesses don't care that something uses AI. They care about three letters, ROI. If apploving models can generate better returns for advertisers, well, then advertisers want to spend more. Apploving earns more. and the flywheel gets stronger. So, what's the catalyst? What am I watching now? Is Apploven's expansion beyond gaming. If management can successfully take its advertising technology into broader e-commerce and web advertising, the addressable market becomes dramatically larger, and that's the upside. But what's the risk? Well, expectations are extremely high. When you are priced for excellence, good results aren't always good enough. But what we saw in the month of August was paying for the stock. The company reported earnings and the day after suffered its worst sell-off and since peaking at the end of 2025, shares are down more than 50%. Now, this doesn't mean it's straight up from here. So, when looking at this stock, understand time is needed, but a lot of the risk has been taken out to a degree. As we are talking about a stock that once had earnings multiple above 60x, today we see it trading at a forward earnings multiple of 15x. While analysts expect near 30% earnings growth next year, giving the stock a PEG ratio well below one. I like that valuation. And when you look here at the stock investors edge site, we can see the company sports an edge score of 82. Again, very strong. This is a company to strongly consider having on your September watch list, especially after the downturn we saw recently. Now for stock number three, which is going to be Uber. And I think Uber story has changed dramatically over the years. Look back 5 years. Investors were asking, will Uber ever make money? Well, today that's no longer a question. Now they're asking, "How large can this platform become? And how do they compete with autonomous driving?" Well, Uber has built an enormous global network. mobility delivery advertising freight, membership, and they're getting into autonomous vehicles. The company dominates in the space and the number of trips continues to climb as they have done over 14.7 billion trips in the past 12 months alone. And that's up from 13.5 billion throughout 2025. But here's the fascinating part. It could become the platform that connects autonomous vehicles with customers. Think about it. Whimo builds the vehicle. Another company builds the autonomous technology. Google saw the platform Uber had and partnered with Uber in areas like Phoenix, Atlanta, and Austin. The Phoenix deal has expired and the two companies have walked away. The other two are likely to close down as well. The intrigue though for Google's Whimo, they know Uber owns the customers and they own the payments and the routing and the demand aggregation, marketplace infrastructure. That's all Uber's strength and even Whimo, Google saw it. The autonomy question though, for years, autonomous vehicles were viewed as a threat to Uber. I'm increasingly looking at autonomy as a potential massive opportunity. If Uber becomes the marketplace through which consumers access multiple AVs or autonomous fleets, it could potentially remove one of the largest expenses in ride sharing, the driver. That's an extremely interesting long-term optionality story. Now, these things aren't going to happen overnight, and we're already seeing a number of car manufacturers partnering with Uber. We're talking about the likes of Mercedes-Benz, Lucid, Nissan, Rivian, and many more. Rivian announced plans for 10,000 autonomous R2 robo taxis, and that number could go up to as many as 40,000. So, it's not a matter of if, but when. And when we look at analysts, they remain upbeat on the stock, giving it an average 12-month price target of 106, implying 35% upside from current levels. We are talking about another stock with a forward earnings multiple of just 16 times which I believe is very intriguing. And when you look at the stock from a different angle, EV to Ebida is one of the lowest in history of the company. Give Uber a long hard look in the month of September. And that leads us to stock number four, which is going to be Alibaba. Stock ticker BABA. And I know this stock is going to give some investors some concern and make them feel uncomfortable. It's China, geopolitical risk, government intervention, consumer weakness. There are legitimate risks here. I'm not ignoring them. But that's also why the valuation opportunity exists. Alibaba gives us exposure to several major themes. Chinese e-commerce, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, international commerce, and improving shareholder returns. What I think investors sometimes forget is that China doesn't need to suddenly become the world's strongest economy or fastest growing for Alibaba to work. The bar is much lower. If China's economy simply stabilizes, consumer confidence improves, cloud demand continues accelerating, and Alibaba continues monetizing AI, the earning story could improve considerably. AI is the gamecher for Alibaba. It isn't simply an e-commerce company anymore. Cloud and AI are becoming increasingly important. And if Chinese companies accelerate adoption of generative AI, I mean, we're talking big-time earnings. Alibaba cloud could become one of the biggest domestic beneficiaries. In the most recent quarter alone, Alibaba's cloud business grew 45% year-over-year. Cloud Ibida grew 133%. And AI related revenues saw tripledigit growth for the 12th consecutive quarter. I know people are out there saying, "Well, I can't invest in China." Or if you're looking at a tobacco company, I can't buy tobacco companies. But remember, we're here to make money, and you could break down many companies to find some negative factors. So, I view Baba as e-commerce plus cloud plus AI plus China recovery optionality. But again, the geopolitical discount is real. That's why I wouldn't size Alibaba like a US mega cap company. And if you're thinking some of the major AI players in the US have been played out, it's important to look elsewhere. And analysts remain upbeat on the stock, giving it a 12-month price target of $183 per share, implying 54% upside from current levels. So, now let's move to stock number five, which is going to be Next Era Energy, stock ticker NE. This is a stock that's the opposite of the high growth companies we often discuss. But I also think it's a great company to consider heading into the weakest month for stocks. Next Era gives exposure to two primary businesses. First, Florida Power and Light, one of the largest regulated utilities in the United States. And second, Next Era Energy Resources, one of the world's largest renewable energy developers. It's a combo of what I like to call old school and new school energy offerings. And what makes NE particularly interesting right now? Electricity demand is changing. For years, US electricity demand was relatively stagnant. That's changing because of AI. With AI brings more data centers. With more data centers brings huge power demands. Plus, you add in manufacturing reshoring that's also taking place. So, ironically, one of my favorite ways to invest in AI right now isn't another semiconductor company. its power. Next era gives me predictable regulated utility earnings, renewable development, energy infrastructure, and exposure to rapidly growing electricity demand. It also provides something my portfolio needs, diversification. If September becomes volatile, as I expect, investors rotate away from high multiple growth stocks. A utility like Next Era gives me completely different earnings profile. So, here's what I'm watching as it relates to Next Era. Interest rates matter tremendously here. Utilities are capital intensive. Higher rates increase financing costs and make dividend paying utilities less attractive. So if rates do in fact continue climbing, Next Era could remain under pressure. But if I believe electricity demand is entering a structural growth cycle, well, I want exposure to that as well. The other thing that Next Era is the fact that it's a dividend paying stock unlike most of the others. And as you can see, the company currently yields a dividend of 3%. And over the past 5 years, the dividend growth rate has been double digits, which is what I love to see. And when it comes to analysts, we could see the company has an average 12-month price target of around $100 per share, implying 25% upside to go along with that growing 3% dividend yield. Keep Next Era on your watch list. So, now let's bring everything together. We're entering historically the weakest month of the year. The S&P 500's already up roughly 13% on the year. NASDAQ up roughly 14%. Inflation remains sticky. Consumer sentiment, well, that's weakening. And the Fed could potentially increase rates. And to me, that would not bode well for stocks. But at the same time, Nvidia just showed us that AI infrastructure demand remains extraordinary. The labor market remains relatively on solid footing and private sector domestic demand remains strong. Corporate earnings are strong and the market is beginning to broaden. That's why I'm not approaching September thinking I need to sell everything. I'm approaching it thinking if September gives me volatility, what do I want to buy? And right now my list is Melly, it gives me e-commerce, fintech and Latin America exposure. Baba, that's China, cloud and AI. Uber, mobility, delivery, autonomy or apploven, AI advertising. And then there's next era, electricity, data centers, infrastructure. And notice something, not one is classified as a technology stock. That's deliberate diversification without abandoning growth. And before we close shop, don't forget about my brand new investing accelerator offer in the pin comment below. Learn how to evaluate the quality of a company, Value Stocks, and best of all, how to utilize stock options to take your investing to the next level. It's the last investment course you will ever need, and you get lifetime access. Now, I want to hear from you. What's your number one stock to buy in the month of September? Let me know in the comment section down below. And if you enjoyed this week's edition of the Investors Weekly Playbook, make sure you hit that like button down below, subscribe to the channel, and I'll see you in the next one. Take care.