Tom Yeung here with your Sunday Digest.
Summer months are usually a boring stretch for active stock traders. Trading volumes dry up, options get more expensive, and everyone is waiting for a second-quarter earnings season that often disappoints. Q2 lacks a major shopping season, which might explain why August and September (when financials are reported) are historically weak for many U.S. stocks – especially consumer-facing ones.
Nevertheless, there’s always a bull market somewhere. And that’s because not every country follows the same calendar that we Americans do.
Much of East Asia treats its Lunar New Year like Christmas. People splash out on fancy vacations and gifts. For them, February is their month to spend big. The Middle East celebrates Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr on an every-changing date.
That’s why I think it’s highly worthwhile for active traders to tune in to an upcoming presentation by TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan, happening on Thursday, July 16, at 10 a.m. Eastern.
In this free Breakthrough 2026 event, Keith explains how he and his team have developed a trading system designed to precisely identify these seasonal signals and help investors pinpoint the exact right time to enter a stock. It’s not just about identifying what the right stocks to buy are… it’s also about when to get in. .
The system works. Last year, I suggested four stocks using this approach. Shares of the four rose 10% on average in the following month – a nice bonus for stocks I already had my eye on. And if you would like to try the tool for yourself, .
In the meantime, Keith’s system has identified two companies that I expect to do extremely well in the coming months. And I’d like to share them with you today.
Stock to Buy No. 1: Open Sesame
It’s been a tough stretch for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA), China’s largest e-commerce company by revenue. After peaking at almost $200 last year, shares of the retail giant have collapsed… reaching as low as $92 last week before seeing a minor rebound last week.
Keith’s system suggests now is the time to get back in. Over the past 12 years, Alibaba’s stock has performed best in the first three weeks of July – an unusual period for Western consumer stocks to perform well.
There’s a good chance this boost stems from China’s 618 shopping festival, a multiweek “digital Black Friday” that runs from mid-May until mid-June. This oddly timed sale comes just three months after Lunar New Year and adds rocket fuel to second-quarter earnings. (In the U.S., it would be like having a second Christmas in March.)
The 618 festival is overshadowed by its better-known cousin, the Singles’ Day sale in November, when people buy presents for themselves. I believe this often causes investors to underestimate that day’s less-famous peer.
Nevertheless, 618 has become a bonanza for online sellers. Analysts estimate that last year’s festival brought in $125 billion in sales. That’s almost as much as what the entire U.S. online holiday shopping season brought in, once you adjust for the size difference of the two countries. This year’s “slow” 618 festival is still expected to see a 4% increase in spending.
Alibaba stands to gain handsomely. The company is responsible for almost 50% of Chinese e-commerce sales by value, and its Taobao and Tmall marketplaces are profitable cash cows.
In addition, I have my eye on Alibaba because it is rapidly expanding into AI cloud computing using a playbook from Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL). Alibaba is now designing its own chips, constructing its own data centers, and developing a whole set of advanced AI models. Its Qwen 3.7 Max AI model is the best of any Chinese firm, as ranked by Artificial Analysis, and is only several months behind OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s leading models.
In other words, Alibaba is becoming a diversified tech giant.
That matters because Alibaba’s e-commerce business now generates too much cash to reinvest in the business. And all this money (over $20 billion per year) can now be used in creating a high-growth, vertically integrated AI business.
This vertical integration is important for Alibaba’s success. Custom-designed chips are more energy efficient and run faster, because they can be hardwired to run specific models (i.e., Alibaba’s). And that means Alibaba can often undercut rivals by simply running things more efficiently.
Think of it like a chef who’s trained to make certain dishes. A diner cook might be able to put together dozens of cuisines and switch between cooking, baking, and sauce-making. These chefs are akin to the generalist data centers like CoreWeave Inc. (CRWV) or Nebius Group NV (NBIS) that take any customer willing to spend money for AI compute.
But if you want a perfect plate of sushi or the crispiest croissant, it’s usually better to go to a restaurant specializing in these dishes, rather than a Las Vegas steakhouse that somehow does it all. This is the strategy Google and Alibaba are both pursuing, and I expect both to succeed.
Best of all, expectations are low for Alibaba. The company now trades at just 17X forward earnings after its recent selloff – a fraction of what e-commerce and AI companies typically trade for. And if Keith’s system is correct, now is the right time to get back into this promising stock.
Stock to Buy No. 2: Wowing Shoppers
South Korean consumers also have their oddities. They do roughly half of all shopping , using their phones to buy everything from fresh groceries to major appliances.
That means South Korean e-commerce platforms have an enormous pull with their digital sales events. And the market leader of this is Coupang Inc. (CPNG).
Coupang is South Korea’s largest retailer by sales, outclassing every other e-commerce and bricks-and-mortar firm. The company has a nationwide logistics network that provides same-day or next-day delivery to over 90% of the country and is aiming to cover 99% within the next several years. Its Rocket Delivery system is so quick that most people ordering fresh food in the evening can expect to receive it before they leave for work the next morning.
Keith’s system suggests that August will be the best time to enter this stock. Over the past five years, shares have risen 9% on average from the start of August through mid-September.
One likely reason is Coupang’s Wow Members Day, a one-week sale that happens in July. The event is so large that I believe it adds somewhere between 10% to 15% of revenue to a normal month of sales.
Another is that South Korea has a second Lunar New Year holiday in September called Chuseok. This is one of the most important festivals of the year, and the sales boost is comparable to both China’s 618 event and America’s online holiday shopping season once you adjust for South Korea’s smaller size. Coupang’s third-quarter revenues are always larger than the first two, and even eclipsed Q4 sales last year.
The company is also quickly emerging from a cybersecurity scandal last year that rocked investor confidence. In mid-June, South Korea finalized a $409 million fine for Coupang over a 2025 data breach that exposed user information. That fine was far smaller than investors expected and caused the stock to jump. For those seeking to line up an investment abroad, Keith’s system finds that Coupang in August is an ideal pick.
Finding the Right Time to Buy
Of course, Coupang and Alibaba come with significant regulatory risks. Both operate in countries with heavy-handed governments, and both have landed on the wrong side of those hands at some point.
- Alibaba founder Jack Ma vanished from the public eye in late 2020 after criticizing Beijing’s financial regulators and state-owned banks. He no longer runs the firm.
- Coupang’s 2025 data breach triggered the government to assemble a massive interagency task force that was later called by an American-led Congressional committee. (Coupang shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange, and so they enjoy some American protections.)
However, that left the two firms at incredible discounts. And cheap prices for high-growth firms often translate into double-digit gains when a recovery arrives.
Now, timing these recoveries used to be a guessing game. Many people turn to “smart money” indicators, technical analysis, or black-box algorithms to figure out when to get in. With Keith Kaplan’s system, this guessing is replaced by careful analysis of data.
I highly recommend you tune in. The system has already helped me find several excellent entry points, and I believe it can help you, too, find the best time to buy the stocks you’ve had your eye on.
Until next week,
Thomas Yeung, CFA
ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Analyst, InvestorPlace
