CHRIS VERSACE: Good morning, Action Alerts Plus members. We'll begin today's rundown with our exiting the shares of American Water Works. As we've seen, and unfortunately experienced, stocks have been hard hit by the continued increase in Treasury yields, especially utilities and, yes, small-cap stocks. Comments from Fed heads yesterday and again today confirm the Fed funds rate will remain elevated for some time, potentially even longer than the market has been thinking.
There's also the potential for one more rate hike that has support from some Fed members. All of this has been driving the 10-year Treasury yield higher, hitting our shares of American Water Works in the process, especially so over the last few weeks. That pressure has pushed AWK shares below key support levels, with the next layer for such support much lower. Amid a landscape that has shifted considerably in the last few months, and even more so in the last few weeks, we are reinstilling a greater sense of discipline with positions, as we look to avoid repeating the mistake of hanging on to a position for far too long.
And yes, that is the mistake that we made with ChargePoint. And that brings us right to the market, which continues to be rather nervous, once again shooting first and asking questions later. This is dragging down high-quality companies and ones that are more interest-rate sensitive even more so. Simply put, members, we are back to day-to-day movements in the market. This level of uncertainty means the market wants direction, and it will be looking at several pieces of data this week to see if we have a clearer path ahead.
This means we will be eyeing several key pieces of data in the next few days, including the September Service PMI reports, the ADP Employment Report, and yes, the September jobs report. Now, while the market is likely to move with the data found in each report-- again, day to day-- a better strategy will be to step back, put each piece of data side by side, and see what it tells us about the pace of the economy, inflation pressures, and yes, wage pressures, as well as labor market tightness. If the aggregate picture suggests the Fed may need to do more, we're likely to see Treasury yields move even higher, with the same potentially true for the dollar.
In other words, members, continued headwinds for the stock market. As we wait to see if that's the outcome, we are reviewing key support levels for our holdings, so we are ready to make tough decisions if needed. As you can imagine, we will have much more on all of this in the coming days as the data unfolds, and we will be sharing our thoughts in our alerts to you. That's our rundown for today. Don't forget to tune in live tomorrow at 12:00 Eastern for a comprehensive, live review of the portfolio and, yes, members, that means we will be talking about ChargePoint, Clear Secure, and many, many other positions. We'll see you then.