The Saturday Sendout

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comGelt is your partner in taxes: an AI-powered platform with an expert CPA team. Quarterly, we align entities, surface missed deductions, and keep estimates tight—turning tax drag into deployable capital with clear actions, predictable outcomes, and stronger cash flow.Reminders - Disclosure is in the email footer - You can copy trade our potfolios here - You can get our daily news updates here - You can see our stock research reports here - Not all of these stocks make it into our portfoliosBefore we get into everything, I want to apologize for being behind on updating the Google sheet that holds all of our data. I am working on a solution that should make that much easier. I will get back in there and start making updates soon! Thank you all for your patience with me right now!Market Wisdom“[Mr. Market] has incurable emotional problems… [he gets] depressed and can see nothing but trouble ahead for both the business and the world. On these occasions he will name a very low price, since he is terrified that you will unload your interest on him.”— Warren BuffettWeekly RoundupS&P 500 fell roughly 2%Dow about -2%Nasdaq near -3%The 10-year Treasury yield edged down ~7 bps to ~4.07%The VIX finished in the low-23s after spiking midweek.Gold hovered a little above $4,050/oz.Oil drifted under $58–60. Bitcoin fell ~8–9% to the mid-$80Ks. The markets remained weak. Even solid numbers out of NVDA couldn’t help strengthen things.Returns this week were brought to you by… Extreme Fear.The AI euphoria phase is slowing down and of course people are terrified… try watching the news right now without being scared about the bubble popping. The reality is that it is all about perspective… Yes the past few weeks have been rough the SPY is down around 5% and my portfolios (in some cases) are down 10%.Why am I not sounding the alarm? Well, why would I?In the photo above, you can see earlier this year from Feb 19 to Apr 8. The market lost nearly 20% in those few short months. It then proceded to go on a 33% run, but again the media isn’t trying to sell you stability. They make more money when they sell fear and greed. We are in a fine position right now, yes, things are weak, but with nearly 50% of our cash on the sidelines I couldn’t feel more comfortable with this positioning. Nvidia sat at the center of everything. The company cleared a very high bar — Q3 revenue about $57B with data center north of $50B and Q4 guided near $65B — and still could not carry the market for long as traders faded the initial pop and leaned into “sell the news.” Again, the news is there to sell you on fear and greed.Around that, capital kept flooding into AI infrastructure and models: Google launched Gemini 3 across products, Brookfield outlined up to $100B for AI assets, Anthropic inked fresh multibillion-dollar compute commitments with Big Tech and chip partners, Saudi-linked groups announced large data-center plans, and Jeff Bezos surfaced with a new industrial-AI venture. Even bulls acknowledged froth risk — Sundar Pichai warned about “elements of irrationality” — and the market traded that way, with intraday reversals and sharp factor whips.What is my opinion here? Great, let the market fall — we are overvalued! I went ahead and put together a quick market indicator on my website: The Simple Signal that you can go check out. If you scroll down below this you’ll come across something called “The Buffet Indicator” which is a fancy way of looking at how overvalued stocks are relative to GNP. It should come as no surprise that we are wildly overvalued. The point is… we are 50% in cash because we don’t like the current market value, and would prefer to allocate capital when we get back down into the 113% - 138% range.Macro and policy pulled in opposite directions this week. October CPI and jobs were still disrupted, and investors were forced to handicap the December Fed meeting off partial and delayed inputs. Their meeting notes (aka the minutes) showed a wider FOMC split, but a late-week rate-cut nudge from NY Fed’s John Williams steadied risk (sending the 10-year a bit lower). Elsewhere, Japan approved a ¥21.3T stimulus that leaned into defense and industry, adding duration questions for JGBs. On the U.S. industrial side, rare-earth onshoring headlines resurfaced as policymakers try to cut China's exposure in magnets and materials.I would love to see some of the mineral stocks trade lower to allow us to make “value buys” in our AI Second Hand Effects portoflio with these. Walmart beat and raised on 28% U.S. e-commerce growth and share gains, while Target cut guidance and Home Depot missed again as big-ticket projects cooled; Lowe’s outperformed on cost control. Gap surprised with its best ex-pandemic comp growth since 2017. Early Black Friday promotions arrived across the board, but the University of Michigan sentiment gauge slid toward the low-50s, and a rise in household utility delinquencies hinted at stretched wallets. If there is a holiday winner’s circle, it is tilting toward value, essentials, and retailers with strong digital execution.As a reminder, markets are irrational. They are there to serve you, do not them control you (see the market wisdom above). Walmart has an incredible quarter, and I guarentee you that if the market continues down, WMT stock will end up lower than what it was before their earnings came out. Is that rational? No, but that is how you make money in this market. You wait and wait and wait, and when you finally see an incredible opportunity you make a move. We are in the waiting phase.Meta won a major antitrust case that removes a breakup overhang tied to Instagram and WhatsApp. Cloudflare resolved a broad outage tied to a configuration error, a reminder of how concentrated critical web plumbing has become. Speaking of which, Cloudflare is shaping up to be a “back up the truck” opportunity. We saw the exact same thing happen to Crowdstrike earlier in the year… I mean do people not think before they sell?Here is a July 19, 2025 article about Crowdstrike stock after their servers crashed:”The cybersecurity specialist’s share price was down 8.5% as of 11 a.m. ET, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Shares had been down as much as 15.4% earlier in the daily session.With a new update that it rolled out, CrowdStrike inadvertently triggered system locks for hardware using Microsoft‘s Windows operating system. The issue has caused massive global outages for information technology systems, and investors are dumping the company’s stock in response.”Sounds like a buying opportunity… not now, but soon.Roblox moved to age-verify chat and separate minors and adults, adding to a wider scrutiny cycle that also hit AI-enabled toys after an unsafe-content scare. In media, Warner Bros. Discovery formally drew multiple suitors for all or parts of the company, but financing and regulatory math will decide how real any bid is.Crypto traded like a high-beta macro asset and then some. Bitcoin knifed from the low-$90Ks to the mid-$80Ks before a small Friday bounce, dragging crypto-exposed equities and triggering forced deleveraging. MicroStrategy kept buying on weakness, but ETF outflows and tighter financial conditions outweighed dip demand this week.Stock ResearchOur stock research is meant to present subscribers with stocks that have the potential for outsized returns. Not all of these stocks make it into my portoflios, but some will every now and again. We started building out our stock research archive right before the market took its turn downward, so our track record doesn’t look incredibly stellar, but as time goes on and markets normalize, I expect this to catch up and turn around! Regardless, these research articles should be used as a tool to find potential new investments for your portfolio. We are keeping track of everything using the thesimpleside.news/stock-research website, and you can follow along there as well. Recent ArticlesNow, alongside these research articles, I am also tracking stocks I call “Berkshire Buy”, which I think are companies that the legendary Warren Buffett and his company Berkshire Hathaway might buy.Not all of these companies make it into my personal portfolios, but a few have, like OXY, NSSC, and QLYS.Portfolio InformationOverextended & Oversold PositionsYou can copy trade the portoflios by clicking here!These represent the 4-month average return of all investors who copy my portfolios.That means these will differ from the portfolio’s total returns since inception because everyone has different overall price averages, different DCA values and amounts, but these returns take into account all of that.Remember, that means that the Autopilot app won’t match 1:1 with your returns, but will show The Simple Side shareholder average.Free subscribers get direct access to all of these portfolios & real-time updates by joining paid here. Or you can directly copy trade by going here: Autopilot.Behind The Paywall - Portfolio Weekly Returns - Portfolio Holdings - Portfolio Changes, Updates, New Investments - Weekly Picks - M&A Stock Picks - Top Investment Stock PicksPortfolio Returns, Holdings & Updates

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comThanks to Constant Contact for sponsoring today’s article!Reminders - Disclosure is in the email footer - You can copy trade our potfolios here - You can get our daily news updates here - You can see our stock research reports here - Not all of these stocks make it into our portfoliosMarket WisdomMichael Burry just disclosed that he would be shutting down his fund Scion Asset Management.Sometimes, we see bubbles. Sometimes, there is something to do about it. Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play.— Michael Burry (October 31, 2025)This quote is actually in reference to WarGames — a 1983 movie where a super computer calculates that the only way to win a nuclear war is by not starting one in the first place.Quite a timely reference since the current race is to generate the most power (through nuclear) to power AI… That is all well and good (and nostalgic), but there are some much much more meaningful references in this quote as well. Sometimes, we see bubbles.This part of the quote references two main things: * The housing market bubble in 2008 * The current AI bubble that Burry has bet against. Sometimes, there is something to do about it.This part of the quote of course referencing that in 2008 there was something to do about the bubble (bet against it). What about the current bubble? Well, that leads into the final part of the quote: Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play.Where he says that even though he believes that the current “bubble” is real, there isn’t anything he believes he can do about it. It is clear to Burry that there is a bubble but he isn’t sure how or when it will burst. That means there is nothing left to do but not play. Now, Burry did mention that on Nov. 25th he would be making an announcement or “moving on to better things,” so we will have to pay attention to what he gets himself into next. Weekly RoundupStocks ripped early and faded late…S&P 500: -.7%Dow: +0.11%Nasdaq: -0.23% The 10-year hovered near 4.1%, the VIX pushed toward 20, oil stayed around $60, gold eased, and bitcoin slid about 10% after breaking below $100K.Returns this week were brought to you by AI whiplash, shutdown relief turning into rate-cut doubt, and a market that still lives and dies by a handful of mega caps.40% — that is how much of the S&P 500 is driven by the top 10 tickers (I say tickers because Google is in there twice). That’s right, 2% of the companies in S&P 500 drive 40% of the returns… yikes. The good news for us is that we aren’t invested in the SPY, nor are we heavily invested in the top 10 stocks as a whole. The bad news is that when the S&P 500 drops people FOMO sell and let the fear guide them and it ends up causing issues for all stocks in or out of the S&P. We at The Simple Side have been expecting this sort of drop for a while now which is why we have been riding with a 50% cash portfolio. Early strength this week came on hopes Congress would wrap the shutdown and on fresh AI deals: a large OpenAI–AWS capacity pact, strong Palantir numbers, and Microsoft winning U.S. licenses to ship tens of thousands of Nvidia GPUs to the UAE. Then the mood flipped — SoftBank dumped its Nvidia stake, CoreWeave flagged a data-center delay after touting a giant backlog, and AI leaders sold off midweek as investors questioned lofty multiples. AMD sketched bigger long-term AI targets, Anthropic laid out a massive U.S. build-out, and Microsoft formed a “superintelligence” group, but the bullish headlines couldn’t offset the valuation nerves.Fed rhetoric remained split and key October reports may never be fully published because of the data blackout, leaving rate-cut odds for December wobbling around a coin-flip. Speaking of which, Polymarket is a great resource to use when it comes to watching the rate cuts and the effect that the cuts have on the economy as a whole.Here you can see the current rate cut odds over the past 3 months. You may notice that over the past few weeks, the rate cut odds have started dropping, and what have we seen in the markets? The same thing, a dropping market. Current odd of a 25bps rate cut have dropped below 50% for the first time ever and right now that matters more than anything.Investors are betting big on the low rate environment helping companies grow quicker (justifying valuations sooner). If that happens, then the markets are safe, if not, then we are heavily overvaluing a majority of the market right now.Of course, there are ways to use these odds to help limit portfolio losses in the case that there is no rate cut, but we will get into that in another article.Consumer confidence remains soft right now, and the current sentiment around housing got weird: a floated 50-year mortgage drew pushback, and regulators mused about “portable” or assumable loans instead.Pfizer won the Metsera bidding war (obesity pipeline). Visa and Mastercard advanced a settlement that would trim interchange fees modestly and expand routing options (likely 2026–27). Merck agreed to buy Cidara for its long-acting flu program. Berkshire filled the last “Buffett-Driven report — adding Alphabet while trimming Apple (Greg Abel reaffirmed as successor). Walmart announced a CEO transition for Feb. 1 and Paramount Skydance laid out deeper cost cuts and price hikes while the sale of Warner Bros. Discovery drew suitor chatter.Target cut grocery prices into the holidays while early Black Friday deals hit Apple gear and more. Starbucks’ “Bearista” merch mania met a Red Cup Day strike; the company said sales still set records. Wendy’s plans to close hundreds of weaker stores to refocus.I think this is a sign that consumer spending is starting to weaken. Yes Starbucks may have set a record, but everywhere else seems to be slowing down a bit. Some fun stuffThe U.S. Mint made their last penny… (rounding to the nearest nickel becomes standard for cash), IRS lifted 2026 retirement contribution caps, and an infant-formula recall widened after botulism cases. Crypto spent the week bleeding as ETF outflows and risk-off tone weighed.Stock ResearchOur stock research is meant to be a tool for subscribers that allows them to read new ideas that we see, but we aren’t sacrificing portfolio positions to invest in. These research articles should be used to find potential new investments for your portfolio. We are keeping track of everything using the thesimpleside.news/stock-research website, and you can follow along there as well. Recent ArticlesThe two stocks we posted research about this week were NextEra Energy (NEE) and Western Digital (WDC) — both are strongly connected with the current AI stock bull market and have the potential to generate some serious returns if the market stays green. They both generate cash flow, have income hitting the bottom line and they both have the ability to capitalize on the AI arms race.Now, alongside these research articles, I am also tracking stocks I call “Berkshire Buy”, which I think are companies that the legendary Warren Buffett and his company Berkshire Hathaway might buy.Not all of these companies make it into my personal portfolios, but a few have, like OXY, NSSC, and QLYS.Portfolio InformationOverextended & Oversold PositionsYou can copy trade the portoflios by clicking here!These represent the 3-month average return of all investors who copy my portfolios.That means these will differ from the portfolios total returns since inception because everyone has different overall price averages, different DCA values and amounts, but these returns take into account all of that.Remember, that means that the Autopilot app won’t match 1:1 with your returns, but will show The Simple Side shareholder average.Free subscribers get direct access to all of these portfolios & real-time updates by joining paid here. Or you can directly copy trade by going here: Autopilot.Behind The Paywall - Portfolio Weekly Returns - Portfolio Holdings - Portfolio Changes, Updates, New Investments - Weekly Picks - M&A Stock Picks - Top Investment Stock PicksPortfolio Returns, Holdings & Updates

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comThanks to Percent for sponsoring today’s article!Reminders - Disclosure is in the email footer - You can copy trade our potfolios here - You can get our daily news updates here - You can see our stock research reports here - Not all of these stocks make it into our portfoliosMarket Wisdom“Everyone has the brain power to make money in stocks. Not everyone has the stomach.”- Peter LynchAbout 10 people copying my trades stopped copying them this week, and about 3 people unsubscribed from the newsletter this week. This is a common trend I notice every time the market dips. People forget that markets take dips, both short and long. Some will happen now, and others will happen later, but they are bound to happen regardless. There are drawdowns, there are setbacks, there are recessions, and there are depressions. To make money, you need to be able to stomach a loss here and there. I’ve done it a few times, and pretty notably in 2022.This graphic shows my portfolio returns from 2020 to the present. What you might notice is that we have experienced a 414% total return over that time periodThese are stellar returns.What you might also notice is that in 2022, I experienced a 30% drawdown… this meant that I underperformed the S&P 500 by 12%. It also brought my overall portfolio returns down from 93% to 34%. A tough loss, but if I decided to sell out of everything I would have missed a 103% return in 2023.That being said, let’s get into the news from this past week. Of course, if you are a paying subscriber, you should be able to jump down towards the bottom of this email to see our portfolio news and performance. Weekly RoundupStocks finally exhaled. After a hot stretch for mega-cap tech, the market spent the week trending lower as the AI trade wobbled and breadth stayed weak. By Friday’s close, the S&P 500 was down roughly 2% on the week, the Nasdaq lost ~3% (worst week since April), and the Dow slipped a bit over 1%. The 10-year yield hovered a touch above 4%, the VIX pushed toward the low 20s passing the 22 mark on Friday. Oil slid to just under $60, and bitcoin broke below $100K midweek before bouncing.Returns this week were brought to you by heavy AI headlines colliding with valuation reality and the long lasting Govenment shutdown. Early on, bulls cheered a seven-year, $38B OpenAI–AWS capacity deal, Palantir’s beat/raise, and U.S. licenses for Microsoft to ship tens of thousands of Nvidia GPUs to the UAE. Regardless of the good news, traders questioned stretched multiples after AMD/AI names ran hot, and the Nasdaq’s leaders gave back gains into Thursday/Friday.Days/weeks like this make it feel great to see 50% of your cash on the sidelines “doing nothing.” If you have cash like this on the sidelines, then there isn’t a need to “panic sell.” In fact, drops in the market are exciting! Now one thing that I am not sure about is whether this selloff is going to be longer standing or if it is a “one time scare.” As with all else, only time will tell. That being said, we are so well positioned with the portfolios we have built. We own some of the most quality stocks the market has to offer right now. The gains in these portfolios will be built over the next few years and a week dip doesn’t make me nervous.Palantir raised its outlook on strong U.S. gov/commercial demand. AMD topped estimates and guided higher, but investors nitpicked margins and the pace of the data-center ramp. Uber beat on trips and revenue yet slipped on spending plans. Consumer bellwethers showed the same K-shaped pattern we’ve seen all year — resilient higher-income spending and softer traffic at the low end — while McDonald’s and Starbucks highlighted value hunting (and, yes, a holiday-cup frenzy).Policy and macro didn’t help risk appetite. The FAA began phasing a shutdown-related 10% air-traffic reduction at major airports, forcing schedule cuts. Mixed Fed speak (one governor urging faster cuts, others counseling patience) left rates near 4% but sentiment fragile. Layoff headlines flared again — even as private payrolls data showed modest job growth — and consumer sentiment slid toward cycle lows.Autos and health care each had their own plotlines. EV demand cooled after credit expirations (hybrids are holding up). Tesla shareholders approved a performance-based package for Musk tied to aggressive product and market-cap milestones. In GLP-1s, Lilly and Novo moved toward lower list prices and broader 2026 coverage, while Big Pharma M&A chatter stayed hot (and the Metsera bidding war escalated).Novo is startrting to look like a very investable stock. The company is down 68% from their high and is closing in on a single digit PE ratio. That being said, they just recently lost the fight for Metsera. Just hous ago it was annouced that MTSR would take Pfizer’s bid over Novo’s citing potential anti-trust issues with Novo.Deal and corporate maneuvering rounded out the week. Kimberly-Clark moved to buy Kenvue. Disney pressed YouTube TV to restore ABC for election coverage amid a blackout. Shein pulled sex-doll listings under French scrutiny. Millennium sold a minority stake in its management company. And a Commerce-backed plan aimed to jump-start U.S. rare-earth magnet capacity—small headline, big supply-chain implications.The race for rare earths is really starting to blow up and could become a very investable sector. Tickers like UUUU (Energy Fuels) have run up over 300% from their lows, but along with ohter stocks have been dropping over the past few weeks. UUUU is down 40% from its ATH on October 15. Under the surface, leadership stayed narrow. Mega-cap AI and cloud names still set the tone day-to-day, but when they sag, the equal-weight S&P can’t pick up the slack. Defensives didn’t save anything, either; the better cushion came from falling oil (easier input costs, softer inflation optics) and a still-contained rate backdrop.The only thing that makes me nervous is that oil is already cheap so falling oil prices can’t hold up the markets forever. Overall, I think we are starting to see a bit of the uneasiness hidden below the market starting to show its ugly head.Stock ResearchOur stock research is meant to be a tool for subscribers that allows them to read new ideas that we see, but we aren’t sacrificing portfolio positions to invest in. These research articles should be used to find potential new investments for your portfolio. We are keeping track of everything using the thesimpleside.news/stock-research website, and you can follow along there as well. Here is our most recent research article…This was the research article that we posted earlier this week, which highlighted Wayfair (W) and called for a 23% return with a target date of Q3 2026. Now, you may remember that in last week’s newsletter, we actually highlighted 3 stocks that have been included in our research article tracking website.Those stocks are Wayfair (W), Nice Ltd (NICE), and Bloom Energy (BE). Currently, only one of these stocks has a positive return (Bloom Energy), but all of their target dates are about 1 year out. As a reminder, you can now follow along with all of these research reports by going here: https://thesimpleside.news/stock-researchNow, this week I have even more trade ideas coming at you… one is an energy play and the other is hardware, but I guess I will keep those articles for this week…If you are or aren’t liking these research articles, let me know by clicking the button below and leaving me a message saying so.Now, alongside these research articles, I am also tracking stocks I call “Berkshire Buy”, which I think are companies that the legendary Warren Buffett and his company Berkshire Hathaway might buy.Not all of these companies make it into my personal portfolios, but a few have, like OXY, NSSC, and QLYS.Now, you can’t make things like this up… last week I called out QLYS. I said…Currently, one of the stocks on this list stands out to me… QLYS. It is a quality company, with great-looking metrics, yet it seems to be struggling. The company is down 40% from its high in 2023. Since then, it has grown its revenue, its net income, and bought back shares, and grown its assets by $200M. This company may become a holding in the Flagship Fund when we rebalance the portfolio for 2026.We proceeded to make the stock the second-largest holding in our Flagship Fund… and here is how that ended up for us…A gain like this in the face of an SPY ending negative is a huge win.Portfolio InformationOverextended & Oversold PositionsPortfolio Returns (these represent the past 3 months)You can copy trade the portoflios by clicking here!Here are our current 3-month returns! These represent the average return of all investors who copy my portfolios. That means these will differ from the portoflios total returns since inception because everyone has different overall price averages, different DCA values and amounts, but these returns take into account all of that.Remember, that means that the Autopilot app won’t match 1:1 with your returns, but will show The Simple Side shareholder average.Free subscribers get direct access to all of these portfolios & real-time updates by joining paid here. Or you can directly copy trade by going here: Autopilot.Behind The Paywall - Portfolio Weekly Returns - Portfolio Holdings - Portfolio Changes, Updates, New Investments - Weekly Picks - M&A Stock Picks - Top Investment Stock PicksPortfolio Returns, Holdings & Updates

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comThanks to Avalara for sponsoring today’s article!Quick Reminders:* Our disclosure is in the email footer* Portfolio copy trading is available here* You can find our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and here on Substack! * You can get daily market news from: The Simple Side Daily newsletter.* Use this button to leave me comments about what you want to see in the newsletter.FIND ALL OF OUR STOCK RESEARCH ARTICLES HERE: LINK Our goal is to be the most transparent, open & honest finance newsletter out there. All of our researched stocks (good and bad). Will be published here after the article is written! Portfolio Overextended & Oversold PositionsMarket WisdomI call investing the greatest business in the world because you never have to swing. You stand at the plate, the pitcher throws you General Motors at 47! U.S. Steel at 39! and nobody calls a strike on you. There’s no penalty except opportunity lost. All day you wait for the pitch you like, then when the fielders are asleep, you step up and hit it.”- Warren BuffetI think Buffett gets quoted and used as a headline far too often in the finance world, but can you blame anyone? He is the Michael Jordan of the finance world, or maybe Michael Jordan is the Warren Buffett of the basketball world… either way, his advice still rings true today. Today’s market wisdom quote is so important in the investment environment. There is so much fear & green being thrown at us as investors all the time. I can’t go more than a few minutes without seeing a post about the bubble. Here is the bad news: you can’t avoid a bubble unless you want to put $0 in equities. Here is the good news: you aren’t required to put all your money in equities! We here at The Simple Side are 50% in cash right now, just waiting for good opportunities to come across our radar. Needless to say, relax. Take a breath, go for a walk, ignore the media for a bit. If you are stressed about your portfolio, take some chips off the table! If you think you’re missing out on returns, throw some chips on the table!Remember, if you have cash on the sidelines, you can stand at the plate for weeks, months, years, and you’ll never be called out. Okay, let’s get into the news!Weekly RoundupStocks climbed to fresh records, powered (again) by mega-cap tech. The S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow all finished higher, but breadth stayed narrow: the market-cap indexes outpaced the equal-weight S&P, which tells you the biggest names did most of the lifting. That narrow leadership matters because it makes the tape look strong even when many stocks are just okay.Here is something a lot of people don’t understand when it comes to investing & it will be beneficial for you to see. What you are looking at is a graph of the median returns of each sector compared to the S&P 500. Tell me what you notice…If you are wondering how the S&P 500 was up this week and the median returns across all sectors was negative, DING DING DING. This shows the current intense concentration that the indexes have on mega-cap companies. The big takeaway here is 2 fold* Investing in the index is becoming an increasingly risky proposition and will begin to underperform in the coming years. * If and when mega-caps start to underperfrom it will bring the whole market down with it. This is bad for those who think the SPY is safe, but good for people like us with cash on the sidelines!The Fed cut 25 bps but warned the next cut isn’t guaranteed. The 10-year hovered near ~4%. Lower/steady long rates boost the value of future earnings, which favors growth and AI leaders. Volatility stayed contained in the mid-teens, a sign dip-buyers remain confident.The market is still experiencing an incredible “buying pace” — aka, people still cannot get enough of equities, so everything seems to remain “bullish” for equity investors (at least through the next few months). AI spending kept showing up in hard numbers. Nvidia pushed to new highs, guided to enormous chip orders into 2026, and extended partnerships from data centers to networking. Microsoft and Alphabet reported strong cloud/AI demand. Meta also grew, but its bigger-than-expected AI capex spooked investors. Useful reminder: the winners of this build-out (chips, racks, power, cooling, interconnects) can rally even when platform owners debate the payback timeline.Earnings flow backed the rally. Amazon beat with an AWS re-acceleration and raised capex for AI. Apple beat and guided to record holiday sales. Industrial and travel names posted solid prints (Honeywell, Las Vegas Sands), while a few payments and software names disappointed (Fiserv reset guidance). The “soft-landing + AI investment” narrative is still intact, but stock-by-stock results matter.Commodities were friendly for risk assets. Oil hovered around ~$60 — a low price for this cycle that eases costs for consumers, transports, and manufacturers (but pressures energy producers unless margins/volumes offset). Gold near ~$4,000 stayed elevated. High gold while stocks rise basically says: investors are willing to take risk, but they’re also hedging against policy/geopolitical surprises.This is something we have seen for weeks now, clearly, not everyone behind the scenes is 100% confident that the current market run can go on forever.Policy and trade headlines lowered tail risk. Washington and Beijing stepped back from fresh escalation and paused new rare-earth export curbs for a year. That reduces near-term supply anxiety for chip and EV supply chains, even if existing controls and scrutiny remain.Amazon announced deeper headcount cuts to streamline layers and steer more dollars to AI. On the deal front, Novartis’ buyout of Avidity lit up small-cap biotech, banks combined to gain scale (Huntington–Cadence), and two major water utilities agreed to merge — evidence of ongoing consolidation across sectors.Crypto was a sideshow: Bitcoin drifted around the low-$100K mark. Institutions keep normalizing the asset class, yet flows remain choppy. It’s acting more like a risk asset than an inflation hedge week-to-week.Insider Trade UpdatesWe keep track of all of these trades on our Google sheet (available to paid subs), and then insider returns are quite astounding… (I have been removing quite a few of the penny stocks/ super risky investments to make the returns more normalized.)The current insider buy/sell ratio is sitting at 0.22, which is relatively low. Over the past 5 years, I have seen the average go as high as 0.81 in May of 2022 (a strong buying signal), and as low as 0.17 (a sell/hold signal). Whale BuysOct 30, 2025* MLPT — MapLight Therapeutics, Inc. · 10% Owner · 5,441,176 @ $17.00 ($92.50M) · holdings +38.17%.* NVCT — Nuvectis Pharma, Inc. · 10% Owner · 154,770 @ $6.18 ($957.08K) · holdings +5.01%.* IRDM — Iridium Communications Inc. · Director · 30,000 @ $17.49 ($524.70K) · holdings +11.22%.Oct 29, 2025* KMI — Kinder Morgan, Inc. · Executive Chairman · 1,000,000 @ $25.96 ($25.96M) · holdings +0.39%.* ASA — ASA Gold & Precious Metals Ltd · 10% Owner · 28,500 @ $44.08 ($1.26M) · holdings +0.56%.* EBC — Eastern Bankshares, Inc. · Executive Chair · 50,000 @ $17.21 ($860.50K) · holdings +13.99%.* NSC — Norfolk Southern Corp · Director · 2,600 @ $281.86 ($732.82K) · holdings +59.09%.* BWB — Bridgewater Bancshares Inc · Director · 30,000 @ $17.45 ($523.54K) · holdings +3,409.09%.Oct 28, 2025* SMMT — Summit Therapeutics Inc. · Director · 533,617 @ $18.74 ($10.00M) · holdings +1.69%.* VRDN — Viridian Therapeutics, Inc. · Director · 454,545 @ $22.00 ($10.00M) · holdings +13.14%.* ASA — ASA Gold & Precious Metals Ltd · 10% Owner · 41,507 @ $46.09 ($1.91M) · holdings +0.83%.* FCN — FTI Consulting, Inc. · CEO/Chairman/President · 7,500 @ $151.12 ($1.13M) · holdings +2.62%.* FMNB — Farmers National Banc Corp (OH) · Director · 73,500 @ $13.59 ($998.87K) · holdings +38.63%.* KO — Coca-Cola Co. · Director · 14,267 @ $70.00 ($998.68K) · holdings +1,276.00%.* GAM — General American Investors Co Inc · (N/A) · 7,208 @ $24.98 ($180.06K) · holdings +5.98%.Officer Skin in the game* EBC — Eastern Bankshares, Inc. · Executive Chair · 50,000 @ $17.21 ($860.50K) · Oct 29.* EBC — Eastern Bankshares, Inc. · Chief Financial Officer · 20,000 @ $16.98 ($339.60K) · Oct 30.* OBK — Origin Bancorp, Inc. · Chief Financial Officer · 4,500 @ $34.88 ($156.94K) · Oct 30.* FCN — FTI Consulting, Inc. · CEO/Chairman/President · 7,500 @ $151.12 ($1.13M) · Oct 28.Largest % Buys* BWB — Bridgewater Bancshares Inc · Director · 30,000 @ $17.45 · holdings +3,409.09% · Oct 29.* KO — Coca-Cola Co. · Director · 14,267 @ $70.00 · holdings +1,276.00% · Oct 28.* NWFL — Norwood Financial Corp · Director · 3,800 @ $26.71 · holdings +264.07% · Oct 29.* TTRX — Turn Therapeutics Inc. · Director · 20,202 @ $4.95 · holdings +202.02% · Oct 28.* NSC — Norfolk Southern Corp · Director · 2,600 @ $281.86 · holdings +59.09% · Oct 29.* RFM — RiverNorth Flexible Municipal Income Fund, Inc. · (N/A) · 3,216 @ $14.30 · holdings +41.69% · Oct 28.* EBC — Eastern Bankshares, Inc. · CFO · 20,000 @ $16.98 · holdings +71.37% · Oct 30.* MLPT — MapLight Therapeutics, Inc. · 10% Owner · 5,441,176 @ $17.00 · holdings +38.17% · Oct 30.* OBK — Origin Bancorp, Inc. · CFO · 4,500 @ $34.88 · holdings +34.29% · Oct 30.* MRP — Millrose Properties, Inc. · Director · 7,500 @ $32.52 · holdings +32.38% · Oct 30.Stock Research & Berkshire BuysYou all likely saw my most recent stock research report on RTX.As a reminder, you can now follow along with all of these research reports by going here: https://thesimpleside.news/stock-researchI went through some of my old newsletters and populated the website with a few of my previous trades — so we have a backlog — but every research article I post will now be able to be seen here (along with some stats).I have 3 more research reports on the way — I am having a lot of fun putting these together! As a reminder, these stocks are

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comThanks to Percent for sponsoring today’s article!Quick Reminders:* Our disclosure is in the email footer* Portfolio copy trading is available here* You can find our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and here on Substack! * You can get daily market news from: The Simple Side Daily newsletter.* Use this button to leave me comments about what you want to see in the newsletter.Portfolio Overextended & Oversold PositionsWeekly RoundupReturns this week were brought to you by… …calmer rates, resilient earnings, and a handful of headline-grabbing corporate moves that kept risk appetite alive.Stocks finished higher overall. The S&P 500 and Dow both notched weekly gains of about 1%, while the Nasdaq did a bit better and small caps popped at mid-week before cooling. The 10-year Treasury yield hugged the ~4% line and even dipped below it at times. That matters because lower (or steady) long-term yields increase the present value of future profits. This tends to support higher equity valuations — especially for growth and tech. This is something that many “dumb money” investors do not understand right now. There is almost always an inverse relationship between these two metrics.This is the same reason why so many people seem to be so good at investing right now. Rates have been “coming down” since late 2023 (yes there have been ups and downs since but 2023 was peak).Oil spent the week around the high-$50s to low-$60s per barrel. That’s a relatively low price for this cycle and generally eases costs for transportation, manufacturing, and consumers; it’s a headwind for energy producer earnings unless volumes or refining margins make up the difference. Gold hovered near an extraordinary ~$4,100 – $4,300. Elevated gold usually signals investors are still buying insurance against policy surprises or geopolitical risk, even as stocks climb. The 3% selloff we saw this week is small relative to the 54% returns gold has had this year. Volatility cooled: the VIX slid back into the high-teens, a sign the market’s immediate fear level eased after the early-October wobble. Bitcoin held near the $110K area; more on why that mattered below.Earnings helped to do a bit of the heavy lifting this week. General Motors beat and raised guidance, showing that core auto profits can hold up even as the EV transition zigzags. GE Aerospace lifted its outlook again on strong jet-engine demand tied to robust global travel and aircraft production. Honeywell, Las Vegas Sands, and several chip-exposed names posted solid reports, helping industrials and tech lead. Defensive pockets like consumer staples and utilities lagged — classic price action when investors are leaning into growth and cyclicals. Don’t forget what’s important here… the buyers. Are retail investors the ones pumping growth and selling defensives, or is institutional money selling defensives and buying growth? To me? Looks like retail is the one selling defense and buying growth. This is a trend that has been going on for weeks now, and it is a clear signal to me that things big money is positioning itself for market drop. Tracking retail vs institutional volume is hard, but somewhat doable. Two ways I do it: Robinhood offers looks at their investors volume and market moves pre/post market. Tech stayed front and center for reasons both good and cautionary. Apple shares were helped by strong iPhone data and news it’s shipping AI servers from a new Texas facility. Nvidia and semi equipment names drew support from ongoing AI data-center spending. On the flip side, an AWS outage reminded everyone how concentrated the internet’s plumbing has become. America runs on Dunkin’ and the internet runs on AWS. It’s clear that when a major cloud region stumbles, downstream apps from trading to ride-hailing feel it. The takeaway isn’t “avoid the cloud”; it’s that reliability, multi-cloud setups, and redundancy remain investment priorities for enterprises.Another note from me here. I think there are going to be investment opportunities generated from this news. Of course, there is the classic buy AMZN because it is clear how many things rely on it. The other take is that we should be looking at and buying cloud backup & data protection companies: RBRK and CLVT are great examples.Autos and mobility mixed the near-term with the long-term. Tesla outlined aggressive production and software ambitions and reported record quarterly deliveries, but it also dealt with a safety recall and the air pocket that can follow expiring EV incentives. Rivian tightened its belt with layoffs and settled a legacy investor suit to clear the decks before its mass-market launch. Airlines like American beat expectations as travel demand stayed durable.Deal-and-capital headlines cut across sectors. Kering sold its beauty unit to L’Oréal to refocus on fashion and shore up the balance sheet. JPMorgan prepared to accept Bitcoin and Ether as collateral for institutional loans.This sounds like small news, but assuming all things go well, this could bode extremely well for anyone long BTC or ether. Coinbase kept expanding with another acquisition, while data-center landlords such as Digital Realty raised guidance thanks to record AI-driven bookings. Pipeline giant Kinder Morgan outlined a large slate of gas projects tied to LNG exports and the power-hungry AI build-out—one more link between semiconductors and old-school energy infrastructure.Kinder Morgan could become a great investment play. At a PE ratio of 21 it seems fairly valued, and a potentially massive player in the world of powering AI with many calling for “co-generation” being the first step between now and the nuclear power takeover. Okay, quick summary…Steady-to-softer yields are a tailwind for stocks. Cheaper oil cools inflation and helps most sectors’ costs & help to keep rates coming down. High gold says not everyone feels safe in the market.Calmer VIX means pullbacks can be shorter and more orderly—until a surprise hits. Put together, this week looked like “risk-on with hedges,” powered by earnings and underpinned by the idea that further rate cuts are on the way. Overall, I remain skeptical and happy with the large amounts of cash we are keeping on hand. Insider Trade UpdatesWe keep track of all of these trades on our Google sheet (available to paid subs), and then insider returns are quite astounding… (I have been removing quite a few of the penny stocks/ super risky investments to make the returns more normalized.)The current insider buy/sell ratio is sitting at 0.21, which is relatively low. Over the past 5 years, I have seen the average go as high as 0.81 in May of 2022 (a strong buying signal), and as low as 0.17 (a sell/hold signal). Buy The Dip Tracker* None that I liked this week.Whale Buys* LAW — CS Disco, Inc.Director bought 24,831 @ $5.95 ($147.8K).* THFF — First Financial CorporationDirector bought 2,295 @ $52.25 ($119.9K).* FAX — Abrdn Asia-Pacific Income Fund IncDirector bought 534 @ $15.57 ($8.3K).* IAF — Abrdn Australia Equity Fund IncDirector bought 910 @ $4.50 ($4.1K).Officer Skin in the Game* CSX — CSX CorporationPresident & CEO bought 55,000 @ $36.87 ($2.03M).* CNS — Cohen & Steers, Inc.Executive Chairman bought 40,539 @ $70.21 ($2.85M).* GRF — Eagle Capital Growth Fund, Inc.CFO/CCO/Secretary/Treasurer bought 9,850 @ $10.59 ($104.3K).Interesting Trade Ideas & Berkshire BuysI have received numerous emails from people requesting that I write more research articles on stocks and the state of the economy. I have previously stated that I prefer writing about the stocks I own and producing research only on stocks I buy. I think this approach is more genuine, and I feel that it is combative against many of the fake gurus who post multiple “stock picks” a week and then choose to only talk about the best ones. The original name of this newsletter was “Simple Side Research.” I shifted away from the “research” name and writing style because it felt too “stock picky.” However, with my current portfolios existing and available to track, and the returns speaking for themselves, I feel comfortable going back to my old “research” version of writing. I am not 100% certain how this will look over the next few months and weeks, but come 2026, I should have a good grip on how I want to do everything! I will continue to write “Berkshire Buy” articles as I see fit. These companies are ones that I believe fit Buffett’s criteria for investing (not always perfectly), and are analyzed from that exact viewpoint. Not all of these companies make it into my personal portfolios. Currently, I own OXY and NSSC in my Flagship Fund.Portfolio PerformanceYou can copy trade the portoflios by clicking here!Here are our current 3-month returns!These represent the average return of all investors who copy my portfolios. That means the returns in the Autopilot app won’t always match 1:1 with your returns, but show The Simple Side shareholder average.Free subscribers get direct access to all of these portfolios & real-time updates by joining paid here. Or you can directly copy trade by going here: Autopilot.* Behind the paywall…* Portfolio Holdings & Updates* Portfolio Strategies, Updates & New Bets* Our Weekly Picks* Mergers & Acquisitions Picks* Top Stock PicksPortfolio Holdings & Updates

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comThanks to Cash App for their continued support of this newsletter!Quick Reminders:Our disclosure is in the email footerPortfolio copy trading is available hereYou can find our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and here on Substack! You can get daily market news from: The Simple Side Daily newsletter.Use this button below to leave me comments!Quick UpdateI am out on vacation this weekend, so today’s newsletter will be quite quick. Two things* If the volatility this week made you queasy, then you need to reassess your risk tolerance and take some $$$ off the table. * I am currently around 50% in cash and find this positioning comfortable.* Go and read this post from this past week; it might help your mindset a bit.Weekly RoundupMonday, Oct 13Stocks bounced back after last week’s tariff scare eased. Lower bond yields (the 10-year slipped toward 4.06%) make future profits look more valuable, so growth names—especially big tech—led. Gold stayed near record levels, which usually means investors are still paying for protection even as stocks rise. Oil hovered just under $60; that’s cheap fuel for airlines, shippers, and consumers, but it can also point to slower global growth or ample supply.Broadcom jumped after teaming with OpenAI to build custom accelerators. Seems like OpenAI wants purpose-built chips, and Broadcom gets a multiyear, high-margin hardware pipeline. NVIDIA rose on fresh ties with Meta and Oracle. Retailers that source heavily from China (Best Buy, Burlington) rallied as trade fears cooled. Banks firmed up into earnings (Goldman, JPMorgan, Citi), which is typical when investors expect solid net-interest income and trading fees. One blemish: industrial distributor Fastenal slid after missing a soft read-through on factory demand.Tuesday, Oct 14Momentum faded. The S&P and Nasdaq slipped while the Dow eked out a gain as money rotated into “boring but steady” areas after strong bank prints from JPMorgan and Wells Fargo. That mix, financials up, megacap tech soft, yields down again near 4.02%, often means rate-cut hopes are helping cyclicals, but investors are taking some profit in the AI leaders.Google’s $10B India data-center/AI hub shows the arms race to build compute and power in lower-cost markets with friendlier permitting. Ford flagged production cuts after a key aluminum supplier’s plant fire; for a truck maker that leans on aluminum, that’s a near-term margin and volume headwind. GM took a $1.6B charge to slow its EV ramp after incentives changed, code for “match supply to demand so we don’t build inventory.” Timber REITs popped on merger talk (PotlatchDeltic/Rayonier), land plus mills equals scale and steadier cash flows. Navitas soared on higher-voltage power chips for NVIDIA-class data centers; more efficient power conversion is a real bottleneck as AI campuses scale.Wednesday, Oct 15Markets clawed higher as yields hugged ~4.01% and Fed chatter kept cut odds alive. Under the hood, companies kept repositioning for the AI build-out and slimmer cost bases. Amazon prepared another round of corporate layoffs—painful news for staff, but a signal to investors that management is protecting margins while it spends heavily on data centers. Microsoft expanded an enormous GPU commitment with partners across the U.S. and Europe. ASML and Bank of America both beat on earnings quality metrics, supporting the “semis equipment and big banks are fine” narrative. In energy and industrials: a judge blocking the restart of a key California oil pipeline hit Sable Offshore; liquid-cooling and power-efficiency names (Asetek, others) benefited from the same AI-power theme that’s lifting chips.Thursday, Oct 16Risk appetite cooled again. Small caps slumped, and regional banks slid after Zions and Western Alliance disclosed fraud-related losses, never a good look for confidence in the sector. When financials wobble, the rest of the market typically trades more cautiously. The 10-year yield dipped under 4% at points (a safety bid into Treasuries), gold stayed elevated (hedge demand), and oil drifted lower (growth concerns plus adequate supply).TSMC’s big revenue jump said plainly that AI chip demand is still strong. First Solar rallied as analysts leaned into its U.S. manufacturing and backlog, AI data centers don’t run without lots of power, and utility-scale solar is part of that build-out.Nestlé announced major job cuts to lift efficiency, a classic “shrink to grow” move.Salesforce raised a long-term revenue bar on data + AI products. NIO fell on an accounting dispute with a major investor, a headline risk that can weigh on all China EVs. Tesla headed back to court over Elon Musk’s pay plan, a governance overhang. Beyond Meat bounced on a debt extension (less near-term default risk, even if the core business still needs fixing). MGM sold a property operation to raise cash and streamline, as well as a balance-sheet tidy-up.Friday, Oct 17Finished green as yields ticked back near 4%. When rates aren’t climbing and there’s no fresh policy shock, dip-buyers tend to show up. Gold eased a bit (less panic), oil stayed in the high-$50s (cheap energy, but also a soft-growth tell).Infrastructure and geopolitics drove headlines. Meta lined up a record private-capital financing for a massive Louisiana data center, important because it shows Wall Street is willing to fund the power-hungry AI build with creative structures. Micron said it would stop supplying server chips to data centers in China because of ongoing restrictions, while still selling to Chinese firms operating outside the mainland, one more example of supply chains re-routing around policy lines. BYD and Ford announced big recalls; recalls are costly in the short run and can dent brand trust, though they’re usually manageable for balance-sheet-healthy automakers. Boston Scientific bought a neuromodulation startup to deepen its pain-management line. Rare-earth exposure lifted Ramaco on hopes that the U.S. will onshore more critical minerals supply.Portfolio PerformanceYou can copy trade the portoflios by clicking here!The returns shown are screenshots from Autopilot (the place where you can copy my trades). These represent the average return of all investors who copy my portfolios. That means the returns in the Autopilot app won’t always match 1:1 with your returns, but show The Simple Side shareholder average.Weekly Picks PerformanceI am debating pausing or stopping the weekly picks. We have done incredibly well with them thus far, but I think the time for them to perform so well is relatively over. If you would like me to continue, please fill out the form in the button below and mention that you want them to stay.We have generated excess returns of 77% on these weekly picks alone.Weekly Picks

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comQuick Reminders:Our disclosure is in the email footerPortfolio copy trading is available hereYou can find our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and here on Substack! You can get daily market news from: The Simple Side Daily newsletter.Recent Updates:I added to the paid subscriber spreadsheet to track positions across all my portfolios that are “overextended” or are “oversold.” Here are some of those stocks:Use this button below to leave me comments!Weekly RoundupReturns this week were brought to you by early-week record highs powered by AI and rate-cut hopes—and a late-week trade-war shock that flipped it all red.Oh how we haven’t learned…. does no one remember all of the trade war antics that happened earlier this year? Does no one remember how they tanked the market just for it to recover weeks later? Nothing burgers. We know how this story goesBig threat → Big Market Drop → Nothing Major Happens → Stocks ReturnsRemember that “Trade Wars” sell great in the news, but the news doesn’t make its money investing. The media makes its money selling fear or greed. When the sell fear, buy. When they sell greed, sell. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 notched fresh intraday records as investors leaned into Big Tech and semis. Treasury yields hovered a little above 4.1% on the 10-year and drifted lower midweek, which usually helps growth stocks. Oil spent most of the week around $61–62 a barrel—cheap versus the past couple of years—which eases costs for shippers, airlines, and consumers but can pressure energy company profits. Gold stayed near an all-time high (around $4,000/oz), which tells you some money is still buying insurance against political and economic shocks even while indexes are near highs.Then Friday hit. A fresh threat of “massive” U.S. tariffs on China sent risk assets into reverse: the Nasdaq dropped about 3.5% on the day, the S&P 500 fell nearly 3%, and the Dow slid close to 2%. When investors fear slower global trade and higher costs, they dump cyclical and mega-cap winners first, buy safer assets, and mark down anything tariff-exposed. You saw what happened: the 10-year yield slipped toward ~4.06% (a safety bid into Treasuries), gold popped, oil sank below $60 as growth worries rose, the dollar eased, and crypto struggled to maintain values.Now remember what I called out last week! The shift in institutional money to defensives (specifically healthcare). We saw tons of retail investors selling CNC, UNH, MOH, etc… No surprise that they shift to defensives just in time for growth/cyclicals to tumble. Big Company MovesBanking got bigger. Fifth Third agreed to buy Comerica in an all-stock deal valuing Comerica at roughly a 20% premium, creating the 9th-largest U.S. bank by assets if regulators sign off. Divestitures are common in big deals like this, and we will likely see the same here.Chips and AI stayed center stage. AMD ripped higher after OpenAI committed to deploy roughly six gigawatts of AMD GPUs—a huge signal that AI spending is shifting from demos to data-center build-outs. Nvidia grabbed its own headline later in the week with U.S. approval to ship certain AI chips to the UAE as part of a broader investment pact. Taiwan Semi’s September sales jumped more than 30% year over year, another sign the AI parts pipeline is still humming—right up until tariff worries sparked a broad semi sell-off on Friday.Tesla teased a cheaper Model Y configuration after posting record quarterly deliveries; an attempt to keep volume growing now that a key $7,500 EV incentive has expired. Ford faced a potential material squeeze after a major aluminum supplier’s plant fire—important because modern pickups are aluminum-heavy. Boeing, meanwhile, is preparing to lift 737 MAX production (subject to FAA sign-off), a needed step to refill airline fleets and repair margins.Deal and policy tape bombs kept coming. HSBC floated a plan to take Hang Seng Bank private, simplifying its Asia structure. Novo Nordisk moved to buy Akero to deepen its metabolic disease pipeline. Microsoft is baking Harvard Health content into Copilot so health answers are sourced and safer. Those same late-day Friday, tariff headlines led the entire market lower: megacap tech, semis, retailers and import-heavy names fell the most; classic “defensives” like consumer staples held up better (Pepsi kept rallying after an earnings beat and a CFO change).Lot’s of things mentioned above — but a few things really stand out as opportunities to me: NVO’s purchase of Akero, and Pepsi’s movement.Starting with Novo — their acquisition of AKRO is interesting to me, but could have large potential payoffs. AKRO, while not profitable, holds nearly no debt relative to their cash (36M in debt to 743M in cash). NVO stock is down 52% YoY but revenue growth still looks solid. Things slowed in Q1 of 2025, but seem to be pick up a bit of steam.Pepsi’s recent moves should come as no surprise. The company owns around 11% of Celsius stock (which has been growing unreasonably quick), and still has very stable revenues, and margins. In fact, net margin even looks to be increasing! I think as/if things continue to shift defensive, PEP will be seen as an undervalued defensive play and will outperform in a bear market. The End of The RoadTwo forces are pulling in opposite directions. On one side, falling—or even just stable—rates and real AI orders are good for profits and valuations. On the other, new tariffs would raise input costs, risk retaliation from China, and could re-ignite inflation just as the Fed inches toward cutting. That mix explains why gold is elevated (hedge demand), oil is soft (growth worries plus ample supply), and the VIX perked up into the weekend (investors paying for protection).In the near term, price movements will be driven by 3 things:* Trade headlines: tariff size, timing (Nov. 1 was floated), and any talk of carve-outs. Bigger, sooner, and broader equals more earnings risk for import-heavy sectors and semis with China exposure.* Earnings season: banks first (a quick read on loan demand, credit quality, and deposit costs), then megacap tech and chipmakers where guidance will matter more than backward-looking beats.* Yields: if the 10-year drifts lower, long-duration assets (software, semis, select biotech) can find their footing again; if tariffs push inflation fears up and yields back higher, expect another rotation into defensives and cash-flow compounders.Like always, the actual path forward is anyone’s guess. I would assume the following going into the end of the year: * China tariffs = nothing burger* Rates probably cut this month & yields likely decreasingInsider Trade UpdatesAs a side note, I try to stay away from insiders buying up their penny stock company. While these can still be great signals, the risk-to-reward ratio isn’t one I find favorable.We keep track of all of these trades on our Google sheet (available to paid subs), and then insider returns are quite astounding… (I have been removing quite a few of the penny stocks/ super risky investments to make the returns more normalized.)The current insider buy/sell ratio is sitting at 0.21, which is relatively low. Over the past 5 years, I have seen the average go as high as 0.81 in May of 2022 (a strong buying signal), and as low as 0.17 (a sell/hold signal). Buy the Dip Tracker* KMX — CarMaxDirector bought 10,816 @ $46.21 after a 22.88% one-month slide.* FDS — FactSet ResearchCFO bought 370 @ $275.48 after a 25.01% one-month drawdown. Whales & Standout Size ($1M+)* SRRK — Scholar RockDirector bought 500,439 @ $37.58 ($18.81M).* BGC — BGC GroupDirector bought 8,973,721 @ $9.21 ($82.63M). Potential dividend reinvestment/tax-related.* GWRS — Global Water ResourcesDirectors bought 728,197 @ $10.30 ($7.50M) and 154,026 @ $10.30 ($1.59M).* ASA — ASA Gold & Precious Metals10% Owner bought 46,649 @ $46.50 ($2.17M) as part of a steady schedule. Slow, relentless accumulation — like gold itself on a treadmill.Officer Skin-in-the-Game* ADC — Agree RealtyPresident & CEO bought 3,528 @ $70.63.* CALM — Cal-Maine FoodsChief Strategy Officer bought 2,800 @ $92.36. Interesting Trade Ideas & Berkshire BuysLast week we picked up KVUE at $15.86 on market open Monday and the stock is up about 5% since then (now $16.65/share). I sold some covered call options on the shares I purchased, a few of them at the $16 range that expired today. Thankfully, none of my shares were assigned, so I get to keep the $10 per contract and the gains from this past week. If, for some reason, my shares were assigned and the transaction hasn’t been processed yet, I will be forced to take about a 1% return on some shares. If that happens, then I hedged this week’s losses with some small KVUE gains! I would also like to note that anyone who picked up KVUE with me was able to beat the S&P 500 this week by around 8%. Kenvue was one of the few companies that ended in the green this week, only dropping about 1% on Friday.As always, I am on the lookout for my next “Berkshire Buy” stock. These companies fit Buffett’s criteria for investing (not always perfectly), and are analyzed from that exact viewpoint. Not all of these companies make it into my personal portfolios. Currently, I own OXY and NSSC in my Flagship Fund.I have been looking at a company to write an article about and you should see that hit your inbox in the next couple of weeks!Portfolio Performance & Forward-Looking Market StatementsYou can copy trade the portoflios by clicking here!The returns shown are screenshots from Autopilot (the place where you can copy my trades). These represent the average return of all investors who copy my portfolios. That means the returns in the Autopilot app won’t always match 1:1 with your returns, but show The Simple Side shareholder average.We have over $1M in AUM! Thank you to everyone who has joined the autopilot and now copies my portoflios! As you can see a

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comQuick Reminders:Our disclosure is in the email footerPortfolio copy trading is available hereYou can find our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and here on Substack! You can get daily market news from: The Simple Side Daily newsletter.Recent Updates:I added to the paid subscriber spreadsheet to track positions across all my portfolios that are “overextended” or are “oversold.” Here are some of those stocks:Use this button below to leave me comments!Quick Portfolio Highlights: Copy My Trades By Clicking HereWeekly RoundupReturns this week were brought to you by……record-breaking AI, healthcare’s hot streak, and “shutdown? shrug.” The S&P 500 and Nasdaq notched fresh highs even with Washington closed for business. Big tech rode AI demand (hello, Nvidia’s $4.5T market cap), while healthcare ripped on drug-price headlines and fresh approvals. Small caps finally joined the party. Energy lagged as oil slipped into the low-$60s.Now, I try to offer just the facts when I do my weekly roundups, but I am going to start inserting my opinions in these quick sections where I feel it is valuable. In this instance, I see two market events that could spell a market top. One, healthcare stocks seeing large amounts of capital flooding in shows investors are running to defensive sectors. Now, when I say investors, I mean big-time smart money investors. Go look at the retail sentiment around healthcare… in fact, here is a screenshot from the robinhood app on Centene (CNC), Molina Healthcare (MOH), and UnitedHealth (UNH) stocks: Institutional money is getting defensive and retail is going risk on... who is right?Stocks pushed to new peaks this week. Investors seem to be increasingly confident that Federal Reserve rate cuts are in our future. Yields on 10-year Treasuries hovered above 4.1% and slipped late in the week, which tends to help growth stocks. We saw and felt this in both of our growth portfolios “AI-Second Hand Effects” and the “Tech-Focused Growth,” which had big runs on Thursday and Friday.Oil drifted in the low-$60s, which is on the cheap side for this cycle—good news for shipping, travel, and input costs—while less great for energy company profits. Gold stayed near the very high end of its range, around $3,900, a sign that some money is still buying insurance against policy and geopolitical risks even as stocks climb.In technology, Nvidia set a fresh milestone with a market value north of $4.5 trillion as demand for AI hardware and full-stack systems stayed strong. Just as important, companies are starting to place orders for AI projects — so the dollars are showing up in bookings and revenue for IT and chip suppliers.Healthcare was the week’s standout. Policy headlines on drug pricing, a handful of positive trial readouts, and new approvals lifted large drugmakers and biotech. This sector behaves defensively (steady cash flows) but still gets upside from successful medicines, which is a rare mix when the economy is slowing but not falling into recession.Again, this is likey institutional money look for “undervalued safe havens” before the market starts to turn.Autos delivered mixed signals. Tesla posted record quarterly deliveries as buyers rushed to capture a soon-to-expire $7,500 EV incentive, but it then raised U.S. lease prices after the credit lapsed. Ford and GM are using their finance units to keep lease math attractive by fronting incentives themselves. The near-term risk is that EV demand cools without subsidies; the longer-term support is that production costs are still trending down.The auto industry seems like a very “sketchy” place to be investing right now. Eveyone seems to be in an EV fight, but no one seems to be making real money from it other than Tesla. Of course, autonomous vehicles are becoming everyones target for success. I think this is extremely bullish for companies like Uber, Lyft, etc. If everyone is trying to “rent” their autonomous cars out, I would want to be the company taking no risk and all the reward (aka the “marketplace”). Industrial and energy news pointed to long-run investment, even with softer oil. Boeing lined up major aircraft orders and is exploring a new single-aisle jet that aims to be roughly 10% more fuel-efficient than today’s models—useful for airlines’ costs and emissions targets. BP approved a $5 billion deepwater Gulf project and outlined asset sales to cut debt, while TotalEnergies sold half of a North American solar portfolio to a financial partner but kept operating control. Pipeline and power deals (for example, Ares buying into key natural-gas infrastructure) underscored steady cash flows in the “picks and shovels” of energy.It is hilarious to see everyone calling energy the “picks and shovels” now. Back in 2024 I was calling for this. In fact, I wrote an article that said “when everyone chases gold, sell them the shovels” in refrence to AI energy demand. Look where we are now. China headlines were a mixed bag. Alibaba said it will spend even more on AI infrastructure and is adding office space in Hong Kong, signaling long-term commitment. BYD reported its first quarterly sales drop since 2020 amid intense price competition, while peers NIO, XPeng, and Li Auto each logged record deliveries. The takeaway: China’s EV market is still growing fast, but the fight for share is squeezing margins.A few prices help frame the road ahead. If Treasury yields drift lower from here, rate-sensitive and long-duration stocks (tech, software, select biotech) should stay supported. Cheaper oil eases inflation pressure and helps most sectors’ costs, but it can weigh on energy earnings unless offset by buybacks or higher volumes. Elevated gold says not everyone believes the “soft landing” is a sure thing—so expect quick rotations if the next data point disappoints.Insider Trade UpdatesNow, something that I will happily tell you more about is insider trades. I have been tracking insider trades in detail for months personally, and I finally decided to keep track of them in our paid subscriber sheet as well. Insiders don’t always get it right… But they do get the best seats in the house. Here are this week’s trades that made us raise an eyebrow. As a side note, I try to stay away from insiders buying up their penny stock company. While these can still be great signals, the risk-to-reward ratio isn’t one I find favorable.We keep track of all of these trades on our Google sheet, and then insider returns are quite astounding… (I have been removing quite a few of the penny stocks/ super risky investments to make the returns more normalized.)Buy-the-Dip Tracker* $FBYD — Falcon’s Beyond Global, Inc.10% Owner bought 4,092,326 shares at $5.00 (≈$20.46M) after a −29.58% week. Note: classified as a dividend reinvestment—signal quality is lower than a pure open-market buy, but the check size is still eye-catching.* $TONX — TON Strategy CompanyDirector bought 70,000 shares at $7.11 (≈$498K) after a −52.41% month. * $NEXT — NextDecade Corporation10% Owner bought 1,001,329 shares at $7.00 (≈$7.01M) after a −31.98% month.* $UUU — Universal Safety Products, Inc.Director bought 25,010 shares at $4.28 (≈$107K) after a −30.82% week. Whales & Standout Size* $MBX — MBX Biosciences, Inc.Director bought 666,666 shares at $18.00 (≈$12.0M). No “dip” tag, just size. * $FBYD — Falcon’s Beyond Global, Inc.10% Owner DRIP buy $20.46M at $5.00 (also in Buy-the-Dip). * $NEXT — NextDecade Corporation10% Owner $7.01M at $7.00 (adds to multiple recent buys). * $PTRN — Pattern Group Inc.10% Owner bought 302,256 shares at $12.77 (≈$3.86M). * $OPEN — Opendoor Technologies Inc.Director bought 300,752 shares at $6.65 (≈$2.0M). * $UAMY — United States Antimony CorporationChairman & CEO bought 100,000 shares at $6.13 (≈$613K). Cluster & Repeat Buying (Always Worth a Look)* $COO — The Cooper Companies, Inc.Director bought 2,000 at $68.39. This marks the 5th insider buy in 30 days. When multiple people at the same table reach for the breadbasket, there’s probably butter.* $MSIF — MSC Income Fund, Inc.Director bought 3,700 at $13.55; 4th insider buy in 30 days. Quiet accumulation in income-land.* $WOR — Worthington Enterprises, Inc.Director bought 10,000 at $52.95; 2 insider buys in 30 days. Steel nerves? Perhaps.Smaller but Notable Nibbles* $FAX Director 600 at $16.78* $IAF Director 1,500 at $4.66* $AWP Director 2,000 at $4.00* $AOD Director 500 at $9.48* $ASIC Director 9,920 at $19.45Interesting Trade Ideas & Berkshire BuysLast week, I had 4 different names for you; this week, I have one. Paying subscribers will be getting a full deep dive/ investment analysis on this company next week. That company is KVUE: Kenvue. Kenvue is now down over 40% since the company spun off from Johnson & Johnson. The majority of this drop off, of course, is coming from the recent Tylenol-Autism link claims. However, current analyst predictions call the company undervalued. By how much? Around 36%, and I tend to agree with these projections. The company has been hit with claims that Tylenol causes autism in children when used by pregnant mothers — a claim that was previously refuted by a judge in 2023. There were further studies in 2024 that made the same claim, but things aren’t always as they seem.Recently, the main researcher (the one who published the study against Tylenol in 2024) said his subsequent analysis shows the usage of Tylenol was not causative of autism.Dr. Brian Lee, a professor of epidemiology at Drexel University, co-authored a 2024 study that initially showed a small statistical association between acetaminophen (Tylenol) use during pregnancy and an increased risk of autism and ADHD. However, his subsequent analysis showed that the link was not causal and likely a statistical artifact.The stock currently yields a 5.22% dividend, which outranks over 82% of similar companies. While the name Kenvue may not be known by a majority of con

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comQuick Reminders:Our disclosure is in the email footerPortfolio copy trading is available hereYou can find our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and here on Substack! You can get daily market news from: The Simple Side Daily newsletter.Recent Updates:I added to the paid subscriber spreadsheet to track positions across all my portfolios that are “overextended” or are “oversold.” Here are some of those stocks:Use this button below to leave me comments!Quick Portfolio Highlights: Copy My Trades By Clicking HereReturns this week were brought to you by……AI money actually getting spent, weight-loss drug land-grabs, and a will-they/won’t-they Fed. Early in the week, big tech rode fresh AI headlines (Micron’s record outlook; Nvidia teaming closer with OpenAI; Apple iPhone 17 demand buzz).Mid-week, rate-cut odds wobbled after firm economic prints; by Friday, the tape steadied but finished a touch lower: S&P 500 −0.3% WTD, Dow −0.2%, Nasdaq −0.7%. Under the hood, breadth was mixed—energy caught a bid on firmer crude while mega-caps took turns giving back gains.Interestingly enough, if you take a look at the odds in Polymarket, it seems like the 25bps October rate cut is still in full force, with an 81% chance (down 5% from earlier in the week). The closest competitor is “no change” with odds under 20%…Remember, the market right now is so inefficient with all of the new “dumb money,” and these downturn swings are currently nothing-burgers (thanks NYUGrad for my new favorite terminology when talking about the news).The big moves (and why they matter)* Pfizer is trying to champion the weight-loss arms raceWhat happened: Pfizer is reportedly close to buying Metsera for ~$7.3B (cash + milestones).Why it matters: GLP-1/obesity drugs are the fastest-growing profit pool in pharma. Pfizer exited its prior obesity pill; this would buy back a seat at the table and future revenue optionality.* Micron blowing up: “tight chips, tight prices”What happened: Guided record Q1 FY26 revenue (~$12.5B) on AI-hungry DRAM/HBM demand.Why it matters: When memory gets tight, pricing power returns. That’s good for margins across the memory complex and a clean read-through to AI server build-outs.* Samsung memory green-lit for NvidiaWhat happened: Nvidia approved Samsung’s advanced HBM parts.Why it matters: A second high-volume supplier alongside SK Hynix eases AI bottlenecks—and can cap runaway component prices. More HBM = more accelerators shipped.* Nvidia is buying speed, not just chipsWhat happened: >$900M to hire Enfabrica’s team and license its networking tech that stitches 100k+ GPUs into one logical system.Why it matters: AI performance isn’t only about GPUs; it’s about feeding them fast. Better networking = more usable compute per dollar.* Oracle/TikTok chatter, Nvidia–OpenAI cozinessWhat happened: Headlines put Oracle back in the TikTok mix; Nvidia rallied on tighter OpenAI ties.Why it matters: Real, named workloads (social, cloud AI) mean actual invoices—less demo, more dollars.* Alibaba picking up the speed: “if AI capex is a race, spend faster”What happened: CEO Eddie Wu flagged AI infrastructure spend above the prior $50B plan.Why it matters: Confirms a global AI build-out isn’t just a U.S. phenomenon. Also, a tailwind for chip, memory, and power/infrastructure names selling into China.* Berkshire exits BYDWhat happened: After 17 years, Berkshire fully sold its BYD stake.Why it matters: Doesn’t doom EVs; it says “we made our money.” For BYD, it removes a perceived overhang but also a long-time vote of confidence.* Accenture & TD SYNNEX → enterprise AI is moving from talk to invoicesWhat happened: Both printed strong bookings/revenue; Accenture cited $80B+ annual bookings with gen-AI in the mix; TD SYNNEX raised outlook.Why it matters: Corporations are signing Statements of Work (translation: paying) to deploy data platforms, GPUs, and AI apps. That’s real spending, not show-and-tell.* Boeing wins with a huge Turkish Airlines orderWhat happened: 225 jets (mix of 787s, 737-8/10 with options).Why it matters: Long-cycle industrial demand is alive. Large wide-body orders help Boeing’s cash recovery story even as certification work continues.* PayPal sells BNPL IOUsWhat happened: Offloading ~$7B of “buy now, pay later” receivables to Blue Owl.Why it matters: Lightens the balance sheet, keeps the customer front end. Think “more fee business, less loan book risk.”* Eli Lilly coming at the world with a two-prong swingWhat happened: EU okayed Kisunla (Alzheimer’s); Lilly is also pouring billions into U.S. manufacturing for its obesity pipeline.Why it matters: One near-term revenue line plus scaled capacity for the category investors care about most (metabolic).Rates, oil, gold, crypto — what these prices are telling you* 10-Year Treasury ~4.12% → 4.18% (up slightly)That’s a highish real/nominal yield by post-2008 standards. Translation: the discount rate on future profits is still firm. Great stories still work, but cash-flow timing matters and “expensive” gets a closer look.* Oil ~$62–65 (West Texas)That’s cheap vs. the 2022–23 cycle and below many OPEC “comfort” levels. Translation: markets see adequate supply + cooler demand. Lower oil helps margins for transports/chemicals and tempers headline inflation—but it’s a headwind to energy EPS unless volumes or buybacks offset.* Gold ~$3,760–3,800 (elevated)That’s historically high. Translation: investors are paying up for insurance—against rate/path uncertainty, geopolitics, or just “AI-era” volatility. High gold often rhymes with sticky real-rate anxiety or big-picture hedging.* Bitcoin ~$109k–115k (drifted lower on the week)Risk barometer took a breather. Translation: in weeks when rate-cut odds soften and megacap froth is questioned, crypto enthusiasm cools first.Insider Trade UpdatesNow, something that I will happily tell you more about is insider trades. I have been tracking insider trades in detail for months personally, and I finally decided to keep track of them in our paid subscriber sheet as well. Insiders don’t always get it right… But they do get the best seats in the house. Here are this week’s trades that made us raise an eyebrow. As a side note, I try to stay away from insiders buying up their penny stock company. While these can still be great signals, the risk-to-reward ratio isn’t one I find favorable.We keep track of all of these trades on our Google sheet, and then insider returns are quite astounding… (I have been removing quite a few of the penny stocks/ super risky investments to make the returns more normalized.Buy-the-Dip Tracker* ARVN — Arvinas, Inc.Director bought 30,000 @ $7.57 after a 68.74% one-year slide. Early stage drug programs + battered chart; look for a reclaim of $8.* NEXT — NextDecade CorporationDirector bought 100,000 @ $6.86 after a 30.66% one-month drop. This makes 5 insider buys in 30 days — classic “find the floor” behavior. A daily close back above $7 keeps the squeeze thesis alive.* BDSX — Biodesix, Inc.Director bought 142,045 @ $7.04 after a 74.59% one-year drawdown; 3rd insider buy in 30 days. Treat $7 as your pivot.* NXXT — NextNRG Inc. (one-time exception)CEO & Executive Chairman bought 1,000,000 @ $1.67 after a 45.25% three-month selloff. High-beta/speculative. Whales & Standout Size ($1M+)* NTSK — Netskope, Inc.Director bought 2,000,000 @ $19.00 ($38.0M). When someone drops a small island’s GDP at a round number, traders tend to circle that level.* VUZI — Vuzix Corporation10% Owner bought 230,242 @ $21.72 ($5.0M), tied to a purchase agreement. Watch $21–$22 as the battleground; sustained holds above there invite momentum money.* WBI — WaterBridge Infrastructure LLCDirector bought 300,000 @ $20.00 ($6.0M) and another 75,000 @ $20.00 ($1.5M). Multiple prints at a clean $20 often act like duct tape for price.* ASA — ASA Gold & Precious Metals10% Owner added 25,870 @ $41.07 ($1.06M). Another week, another add — slow, steady accumulation while gold names oscillate.Cluster & Repeat Buying (Signal Upgrade)* NEXT — five insider buys in a month around $7 after a sharp dump. Translation: insiders are trying to nail the floorboards back down.* BDSX — three buys in 30 days while price defends $7.* ASA — ongoing weekly adds; the glacier keeps inching forward.Interesting Trade Ideas & Berkshire BuysI have four things for everyone this week… some will get more in-depth write-ups later this upcoming week. There is no better time than the present to introduce some new ideas. The four companies that look very interesting to me are NTSK, NXXT, NEXT, and KVUE. NTSK — NetskopeThis is a company that I have discussed before, and I want to put it on everyone’s watchlist again. The company is expected to grow revenue at a 27% CAGR through 2027 (which could potentially value the company at $48 a share — a nearly 100% return over the next 2-3 years). My only reason for not investing? The company turns a total profit of ZERO. Well, technically less than zero, but you get the point.I want the company to prove itself a bit before I go throwing money at it. NXXT — NextNRG and NEXT — NextDecade Corp These companies both operate in the world of energy generation. NXXT in the world of solar and battery storage and NEXT in the world of liquid natural gas. Both companies have seen some pretty wild action in the world of insider buying, as highlighted above. NEXT is down over 30% over the past month, down 20% over the past 3 months, and analysts put the price of the company at $10 — a 42% upside from current levels. Now, all of the insiders are buying? Seems like there might be a bit of trade here. The story is more of the same with NXXT — the company is down 43% YTD, but has been on the climb (up 14% from lows this month). Insiders have been silent since the stock went public in February, then suddenly, insiders show up with $1 million? Both of these companies are RISKY — neither has s

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comQuick Reminders:Our disclosure is in the email footerPortfolio copy trading is available hereYou can find our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and here on Substack! You can get daily market news from: The Simple Side Daily newsletter.Recent Updates:I added to the paid subscriber spreadsheet to track positions across all my portfolios that are “overextended” or are “oversold.” Here are some of those stocks:Use this button below to leave me comments!Quick Portfolio Highlights: Copy My Trades By Clicking HereThis week, the returns in our portfolios were brought to you by "The Federal Reserve” and their rate cuts! We are going to jump into the AI-Second hand effects portfolio here in just a minute to discuss some of the factors that drove this week’s performance. If it just so happens that you were out on a beach this past week, don’t worry, I am going to catch you up with everything that happened in the markets this past week!The Big PictureThe Fed finally trimmed 25 bps and the market did the happy shuffle: S&P 500 and Nasdaq printed fresh highs mid-week, small caps woke up, and the 2s/10s hovered near ~3.5%/4.1%—easy enough on cash-flow math without feeling bubbly. Oil camped in the low-$60s, gold stayed rich, VIX stayed sleepy. Translation: cheaper money + still-solid growth = “risk on,” with anything tied to AI buildouts, software, and financing (M&A, buybacks) getting an extra tailwind.The Moves That Mattered* Musk writes a billion-dollar love letter to Tesla. Elon bought ~2.57M TSLA shares ($371–$397), which isn’t a tweet—it’s a wire transfer. Insider buy that size resets sentiment and says management believes margins/volume or new products can outrun the current skepticism.* Nvidia builds the AI plumbing while dodging geopolitics. A China pause on certain NVDA chips nicked the tape, but Nvidia countered by spending >$900M to hire Enfabrica’s CEO and license its networking tech (think: knitting 100,000+ GPUs into one logical machine). Add a planned $500M into UK self-driving startup Wayve and the story is clear: sell systems, not just chips.* Alphabet plants a bigger flag in Britain. Google committed £5B to UK AI (new Waltham Cross data center + jobs). More local compute = lower latency, easier compliance, and another on-ramp for Cloud/DeepMind demand.* Oracle keeps finding new on-ramps to cloud revenue. Reports it’s anchoring a consortium to keep TikTok running in the U.S. If that sticks, expect sticky, high-utilization workloads on Oracle iron—great for backlog visibility and margins.* Healthcare power plays. Roche is buying 89bio (up to $3.5B) to bulk up cardio-metabolic; Novo Nordisk rallied on data showing Ozempic beat Trulicity on heart outcomes and an oral sema readout with ~16.6% weight loss. That’s pipeline-by-checkbook from Roche and category expansion from Novo.* Cash speaks elsewhere, too. Microsoft lifted its dividend +9.6% (AI spend and shareholder returns), Netskope raised ~$908M in a punchy cybersecurity IPO, and FedEx mapped FY26 EPS $17.20–$19 on $1B in savings—leaner networks, richer profits.Portfolio HighlightOkay, now let’s talk about the AI Second-Hands Effects Portfolio. I won’t go through the whole thing here (paying subscribers can access it below), but I want to highlight a few of the stocks. The two stocks I want to talk about are SMR and LEU — both of which were parts of the initial contrarian trades I made on energy and “AI Second-Hand Effects” back in November of 2024. You can find the original article here: article link.Since I wrote about LEU and SMR, the stocks have returned 320% and 103% respectively. The reason we are talking about them today is because they both hit the list of “top gainers” on Friday with SMR landing a number 5 with a healthy 22.69% return and LEU ending at spot 11 with 12.12% returns.Now, the reason I want to highlight this is because I don’t make very many changes to my portfolios/investments. A lot of the time I am buying and DCAing into the same group of stocks for months or years. I make very few adjustments to the portfolios, and that makes my investment style the worst for writing a newsletter. It means I don’t send out a lot of emails, and I don’t send out emails saying “this micro-cap is the next 100x for your portfolio.” Now, that would sure help me sell subscriptions, but it wouldn’t help you or I make any money in the stock market. My personal money goes directly into the portfolios I share here. The gains you see are reflected in my brokerage account, and my goal is to make us money in the stock market.The best way to do that is for me to find once-in-a-lifetime asymmetric upside bets, tell you about them, and then invest.Sure, you won’t get 3 emails a week telling you about the next hot stock (boy that would sell better), but you will get outsized returns in the long run, and that is what I am here for.Insider Trade UpdatesNow, something that I will happily tell you more about are insider trades. I have been tracking insider trades in detail for months personally and I finally decided to keep track of them in our paid subscriber sheet as well. Insiders don’t always get it right… but they do get the best seats in the house. Here are this week’s trades that made us raise an eyebrow. As a side note, I try to stay away from insiders buying up their penny stock company. While these can still be great signals, the risk-to-reward ratio isn’t one I find favorable.We keep track of all of these trades on our Google sheet, and then insider returns are quite astounding… (I have been removing quite a few of the penny stocks/ super risky investments to make the returns more normalized.Buy the Dip TrackerInsiders buying after meaningful drawdowns — percent and window included.* TTGT — TechTargetDirector bought 20,000 @ $5.97 after a 75.19% one-year slide. Deep cut in ad/MarTech; use the print as your line in the sand.* NEXT — NextDecadeCEO bought 281,500 @ $7.14 after a 33.20% one-week drop;Director later bought 500,000 @ $7.31 after a 29.84% one-week drop;Other insider added 357,021 @ $6.98 after a 33.57% one-month pullback.Cluster + capitulation bounce setup; let price hold above the $7 area before leaning in.* RAPP — Rapport TherapeuticsDirector bought 41,666 @ $24.65 and 20,400 @ $24.48 after a 21.42% one-week hit. When the doctor orders two doses, you read the label.* ZVRA — Zevra TherapeuticsDirector bought 3,175 @ $7.79 after a 23.01% one-month drop. Small ticket, but it’s the third insider buy in 30 days — a nibble can still telegraph conviction.Whales & Standout Size ($1M+)Large prints that can set floors (or at least draw a line for the chartists).* TSLA — Tesla: CEO bought 2,568,732 @ $389.28 ($999.96M). That’s not a toe-dip; that’s a cannonball.* BRCB — Black Rock Coffee Bar: 10% Owner bought 3,118,938 @ $20.00 ($62.38M) in a public offering.* LBRX — LB Pharmaceuticals: 10% Owner 2,666,666 @ $15.00 ($40.0M); Director 1,000,000 @ $15.00 ($15.0M); 10% Owner 333,333 @ $15.00 ($5.0M). Triple-shot accumulation.* HYMC — Hycroft Mining: 10% Owner bought 14,017,056 @ $4.28 ($40.0M). A gold-adjacent splash.* CGON — CG Oncology: Director bought 1,515,151 @ $33.00 ($50.0M).* AMR — Alpha Metallurgical: Director bought 108,000 @ $148.55 ($16.04M).* RYAN — Ryan Specialty: Exec Chair bought 276,634 @ $51.84 ($14.34M).* ASA — ASA Gold & Precious Metals: 10% Owner bought 205,492 @ $40.67 ($8.36M) — part of a steady weekly program.* OPEN — Opendoor: Director bought 451,127 @ $6.65 ($3.0M).Officer Skin-in-the-GameExecutives opening their wallets (always a stronger signal than outside directors).* ABAT — American Battery Technology: COO bought 1,240,709 @ $1.07 ($1.33M). Adds to recent C-suite activity.* ALXO — ALX Oncology: CEO bought 92,233 @ $1.08. Dollar-menu oncology; watch for follow-through.* MSTR — “Strategy Inc.” (MSTR): EVP & General Counsel bought 12,500 @ $96.92 ($1.21M). Lawyers don’t usually YOLO.* MBIN — Merchants Bancorp: CFO bought 3,000 @ $24.87.* NMFC — New Mountain Finance: EVP/CAO/Director bought 49,750 @ $10.03 ($498.8K) via DRIP; Director later added 106,691 @ $9.78 ($1.04M).Cluster & Repeat BuyingPatterns that upgrade the signal quality.* NEXT: Three insider buys in 3 days around $7 after a sharp selloff — classic floor-finding behavior.* ASA: Ongoing weekly accumulation — the glacial kind of buying that moves mountains over time.* BWFG — Bankwell Financial: 7th and 8th insider purchases in 30 days (directors at $44.78 and $45.91).* LBRX: Multiple insiders stacking size at $15.00.* ABAT: Another C-suite buy adds to the recent cluster.Interesting Trade Ideas & Berkshire BuysThe past few IPO’s that I called out at interesting trades were Black Rock Coffee Bar and Netskope. Currently, Netskope and Black Rock Coffee are up over 30% from their IPO prices. Now, I am sure that the valuations are high post IPO; however, I like both companies as long-term bets. As for the Netskope thesis, I have been bullish on cybersecurity for a long time, and having a new player in the investing realm is great. As many of you know, I own NET (Cloudflare) in my Flagship and Tech-Focused growth portfolios and the performance has already surpassed 18% since my initial purchase. I don’t currently feel comfortable making a full investment thesis for the company. I want to learn a bit more about the company, their moat, and take some time to consider the future prospects of the business before making any final statements.As for Black Rock Coffee, I think a new major competitor in the world of “big time” coffee chains is needed and welcomed by a majority of the consumers. Starbucks has been struggling to find its “company identity” along with multiple staffing issues. I do know that the current price-to-sales ratio is 2.67 while Starbucks sits at 2.64 and Luckin’ is 2.1. As far as I know, the company currently has over $200M in debt and isn’t profitable, so it might be s

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comQuick Reminders:Our disclosure is in the email footerPortfolio copy trading is available hereTo Simple Side Shareholders — good morning! I am glad to have you join me for another Saturday Sendout. As a reminder, you can find our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and here on Substack! Updates The new format going forward will look similar to this in our weekly updates:* FREE* Market Commentary & News* Quick Insider Trade Updates* Interesting Trade Ideas* Portfolio Performance* PAID* Portfolio Holdings & Updates* Portfolio Strategies, Updates & New Bets* Our Weekly Picks* Mergers & Acquisitions Picks* Top Stock PicksAs a reminder, all of this will be accessible to you via copy trading. Remember that these portfolios ARE NOT GET-RICH-QUICK portfolios. I am focused on long-term market outperformance. There will be updates made to the paid subscriber spreadsheet as well, but I will likely update everyone on those when they are completed! A few quick updates on all of the thoughts that you have been submitting. * I have added a spot on my paid subscriber spreadsheet to track positions across all my portfolios that are “overextended” or are “oversold” and could be trimmed or added to in your personal portfolios.* Someone was also asking for “Morning Tea” which I assume means that they want to see daily morning market news. Well… I have that already! You can go over to The Simple Side Daily and subscribe there!Market CommentaryThe big picture* Indices: Nasdaq +2.0%, S&P 500 +1.6%, Dow +1.0% (equal-weight lagged again). Tech did the heavy lifting—semis popped and Oracle stole the show.* Rates & odds: Headline PPI +0.4% m/m and initial claims up to 263k reinforced the “cooling, not collapsing” narrative. Markets kept a near-lock on a 25 bp Fed cut this month and left the door open for another by year-end.* Tone: Mega-caps outran everything else; cyclicals and energy were choppy with oil hovering near $62–$64.Tech & AI — the week’s horsepower* Oracle (ORCL): With remaining performance obligations at $455B (up 359% y/y), Oracle said it’s scaling cloud infrastructure for AI customers (think training clusters, inference at the edge). Translation: multi-year visibility plus room to raise capacity pricing if demand stays hot.* Synopsys (SNPS): With its purchase of Ansys now complete, Synopsys guided FY25 revenue to $7.03–$7.06B and said it’s steering chip-design IP toward AI, autos and high-speed connectivity, while trimming lines snarled by export controls and foundry bottlenecks. That’s code for “more dollars where demand is compounding, less where geopolitics slow POs.”* TSMC (TSM) & the supply chain: August sales +34% y/y and sequentially higher—evidence that AI silicon demand is still outrunning capacity. ASE (ASX) echoed strength in assembly/test; Texas Instruments (TXN) talked up data-center revenue potentially jumping ~50% into 2025 as AI buildouts need a lot more power, sensing and analog.* Adobe (ADBE): Record Q3 ($5.99B revenue) and a guidance lift as AI features (Acrobat AI Assistant et al.) pushed AI-influenced ARR >$5B. The story here isn’t just cool demos—it’s higher seat expansion and premium SKU mix.* Microsoft & OpenAI: A new pact lets OpenAI restructure into a for-profit while keeping Microsoft’s access to the tech. Expect faster capital raises on OpenAI’s side and more consumption for Azure on Microsoft’s.EVs & autos — growth meets growing pains* Rivian & Tesla: Rivian recalled 24k vehicles (software fix for Hands-Free Highway Assist); Tesla lost another senior engineer as leadership churn continues. Software credibility and talent retention matter when you’re selling autonomy as a feature.* Ford: 1.46M vehicles recalled for rear camera issues—costly, but more importantly it’s yet another reminder that legacy quality control remains under the microscope.* XPeng: Unveiled the Next P7 in Europe (durability + AI focus) while separately recalling 47,490 P7+ sedans in China for a steering gear replacement. Global expansion only works if home-market reliability cooperates.* NIO: Announced an equity raise (~$1B) to fund core EV tech and its swapping/charging network. Dilutive near-term, but it buys runway to keep the ecosystem moving.* Hyundai/LG Energy JV: A U.S. immigration raid paused construction at the Georgia battery site—an unexpected supply-chain speed bump for an otherwise aggressive U.S. EV footprint.Energy, resources & industrials — rewiring the world* SpaceX ↔ EchoStar: SpaceX is buying EchoStar’s AWS-4 + H-block spectrum for ~$17B (half cash, half SpaceX stock, plus it covers $2B of EchoStar interest through Nov ’27). This gives Starlink cellular-grade spectrum for Direct-to-Cell service; for EchoStar it’s a de-leveraging event with growth optionality instead of bond math.* Apollo ↔ RWE / Amprion: €3.2B equity commitment to back RWE’s 25.1% stake in grid operator Amprion. Why care? Regulated grid assets throw off stable dividends while Europe’s electrification needs colossal capex.* Baker Hughes: Won liquefaction equipment for Rio Grande LNG Train 4—more evidence U.S. LNG buildout momentum is intact even with softer spot prices.* Chevron: Plans to lean into South Korea petrochemicals via GS Caltex—not just fuels, but higher-margin materials as the refining cycle normalizes.* Freeport-McMoRan: Temporarily halted operations at Grasberg to search for workers after a mudflow—human priority first, and near-term copper volumes likely trimmed.* Energy Fuels: U.S.-processed rare earths showed up in EV magnets—a small technical win with big strategic implications for a China-light supply chain.Deals, capital & corporate moves — the money map* PNC x FirstBank (Colorado): PNC agreed to buy FirstBank for $4.1B (cash/stock), aiming to triple its branch footprint in Colorado. In plain English: PNC wants to be the go-to regional bank in one of the country’s fastest-growing economies, and deposits are the prize.* Anglo American ↔ Teck (rumored ~$20B): Would super-charge Anglo’s copper exposure just as grids, EVs and AI data centers gobble it up.* Phillips 66: Buying the remaining 50% of WRB Refining from Cenovus for $1.4B, taking full control of Wood River & Borger—simpler governance, cleaner allocation, better utilization.* Exxon Mobil: Acquiring U.S. assets of Superior Graphite to make synthetic graphite domestically by 2029—critical battery material without Chinese dependence.* Barrick: Selling Hemlo (Canada) for up to $1.09B to refocus on Tier-One gold/copper; Iberdrola lifting Neoenergia stake to 84% to deepen regulated networks in Brazil.* Figure (FIGR) IPO: $787.5M raised; Klarna priced at $40/sh (valued $15.1B); Alibaba upsized with $3.17B zero-coupon converts; Nebius lined up $3.75B debt/equity to scale AI data centers (tied to its Microsoft deal).* Veritone, Avidity, Astronics: More raises across AI and aero-sat niches—dilutive, yes, but they keep the growth engines funded into 2026.Health care & life sciences — pipeline beats and portfolio pruning* Eli Lilly: Late-stage Jaypirca data in leukemia extended progression-free survival; commercial upside grows beyond obesity/diabetes.* Novartis: Buying Tourmaline Bio ($1.4B) for pacibekitug (cardio)—continuing the “buy the best shots on goal” strategy in large chronic markets.* UnitedHealth: Reaffirmed 2025 EPS ≥ $16 on $445.5–$448B revenue; steadier guide helps the managed-care tape after a volatile year.* Regeneron & Sandoz: Settlement clears a path for an Eylea biosimilar in late 2026—margin pressure later, but also clarity for modeling.* Teva: Fast-track tag for emrusolmin (Multiple System Atrophy) accelerates timelines where treatments are scarce.* Summit Therapeutics: Phase 3 ivonescimab showed a survival trend but missed investor hopes; stock reset reflects the difference between “stat-sig” and “close.”Consumer & retail — winners know their lane* Apple Watch: Hypertension detection rolls out post-FDA clearance across 150 regions—health features keep Apple’s wearables sticky and raise upgrade intent.* Oxford Industries: Reiterated $1.475–$1.515B FY sales; Lilly Pulitzer and emerging brands offset softness at Tommy Bahama/Johnny Was—portfolio balance doing its job.* Potbelly: Accepted a $17.12/sh take-private by RaceTrac; Black Rock Coffee Bar raised $294M in its IPO—yes, we live in the golden age of caffeinated cap tables.* Pop Mart: Added to Hang Seng but slid on demand worries—index love doesn’t always equal sell-through love.* RH: Lifted ’25 revenue growth to 9–11%, pushing harder into Europe and shifting sourcing away from China to dull tariff bite.Media, software & cyber — cash flows and curveballs* BILL Holdings: Starboard nominated four directors (8.5% stake). Expect more talk about margins, go-to-market focus, and buybacks.* Vimeo: Being acquired by Bending Spoons for $1.38B cash ($7.85/sh)—a premium exit that ends its lonely life as a stand-alone public SaaS.* SentinelOne: Buying Observo AI to beef up data pipelines for SIEM/SOC—because detection is only as good as the exhaust you can digest.* Mitsubishi Electric: Moving to acquire Nozomi Networks—OT/IoT security is now must-have, not nice-to-have, for industrial giants.* Cerence: Building an in-car work assistant with Microsoft 365 Copilot + Intune controls—hands-free, IT-approved email and docs while parked (we hope).Banks & insurers — blocking and tackling* U.S. Bancorp: Dividend up 4% to $0.52 (≈4.2% forward yield).* Arthur J. Gallagher: Buying Bremer Insurance from Old National to bulk up P&C distribution.* PNC recap (because clarity matters): The FirstBank deal is PNC paying $4.1B to acquire a Colorado-focused bank so it can triple its branch count in the state, grab more low-cost deposits, and cross-sell loans and wealth to a fast-growing local customer base. That’s the whole play.Insider Trade UpdatesInsiders don’t always get it right… but they do get the best seats in the house. Here are this

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comQuick Reminders:Our disclosure is in the email footerPortfolio copy trading is available hereTo Simple Side Shareholders — good morning! I am glad to have you join me for another Saturday Sendout. As a reminder, you can find our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and here on Substack! Updates The new format going forward will look similar to this in our weekly updates:* FREE* Market Commentary & News* Quick Insider Trade Updates* Interesting Trade Ideas* Portfolio Performance* PAID* Portfolio Holdings & Updates* Portfolio Strategies, Updates & New Bets* Our Weekly Picks* Mergers & Acquisitions Picks* Top Stock PicksAs a reminder, all of this will be accessible to you via copy trading. Remember that these portfolios ARE NOT GET-RICH-QUICK portfolios. I am focused on long-term market outperformance. There will be updates made to the paid subscriber spreadsheet as well, but I will likely update everyone on those when they are completed! Market CommentaryThe week in one glance* After a choppy Tuesday, stocks firmed into week-end: S&P 500 up WTD (fresh intraday highs Friday morning), Nasdaq +1.1%, Dow -0.3%. Small/mid-caps finally joined the party (Russell 2000 +1.0%, S&P Mid Cap 400 +1.3%), a healthier look for breadth as the VIX spiked midweek and faded.* Yields eased by Friday (≈4.08% 10-yr, ≈3.6% 2-yr) as labor data cooled and September cut odds pressed into the high-90s. Oil slipped toward $63 even as gold stayed firm; call it “soft landing with a safety net.”Macro, rates & policy* A softer ADP print, three straight months of contraction in ISM services employment (46.5), and 22k nonfarm payrolls with 4.3% unemployment kept the “one-and-done” cut narrative intact. Markets are effectively pricing a quarter-point trim in September because the Fed likes easing when the job market cools without breaking.* A U.S. appeals-court challenge to tariff legality injected trade-policy noise; current tariffs remain into mid-October with likely appeals ahead. That’s not a forecast—just a reminder that supply chains dislike suspense.Leadership & sectors* Communication Services ran the table (+5.1% WTD) as Alphabet won breathing room on Chrome/search defaults, dragging mega-cap peers higher.* Energy sagged (-3.5% WTD) even with crude’s early-week pop; defensives were mixed and Financials lagged (-1.7%) on the “lower yields, later NIM” math. Under the hood, equal-weight and small-caps improving is exactly what you want to see if you’re rooting for a durable tape.AI, chips & cloud — the build-out keeps building* Broadcom posted record results, a 63% YoY jump in AI semi sales, a $10B AI infra order from a new customer, and a fat backlog—evidence that networks and custom silicon are the picks-and-shovels of this cycle. OpenAI teaming with Broadcom on an in-house chip underlines the same theme: hyperscalers want control of their bill of materials, not just more GPUs.* Credo (active electrical cables) and Ciena (optical) popped on strong prints tied to bandwidth-hungry AI clusters; Texas Instruments reminded everyone autos/industrial are still digesting inventory. Translation: AI spend is secular, but not every end-market is on the same calendar.* Amazon kept stacking chips and real estate—ramping Trainium with Anthropic while opening a 100% renewables-powered AWS New Zealand region backed by NZ$7.5B in capex. The cloud isn’t done; it’s getting closer to customers.Deals, capital moves & corporate resets* Kraft Heinz will split into two tax-free public companies to simplify the story and capital allocation; Elliott took a ~$4B swing at PepsiCo, a nudge that “do more, faster” plays well when share gains stall.* Air Lease agreed to a $65-per-share take-private backed by Sumitomo; lessors like steady, long-dated cash flows, and so do private buyers.* SS&C bought South Africa’s Curo Fund Services; Coincheck moved for Paris-based Aplo; Aon is selling NFP’s wealth arm back to Madison Dearborn—everyone’s pruning to the core.* On the balance-sheet front: Lyft raised $450M via converts (capped calls to tame dilution); BILL drew Starboard in at ~8%; T. Rowe Price rallied on Goldman’s planned $1B stake. The message: capital still chases fee streams and operating leverage.Autos, EVs & autonomy* Tesla’s India debut reportedly logged ~600 orders so far—limited cities, premium pricing, and early-days logistics make for a slow on-ramp; meanwhile BYD’s price-war squeeze clipped Q2 profits even as revenue rose, and NIO guided stronger Q3 deliveries while still burning cash. Competition is doing what competition does.* Toyota put €680M into a Czech BEV line (first in Europe), Qualcomm + BMW launched Ride Pilot, and Waymo won the green light to operate at San Jose’s airport—less sci-fi, more route map.Energy, resources & industrials* Exxon’s Guyana machine keeps scaling after election clarity; TotalEnergies grabbed Nigerian offshore exploration licenses; Uranium Energy stood up a unit to explore U.S. refining/conversion—vertical integration meets energy security.* In Canada, Strathcona took an 11.8% stake in MEG to contest the Cenovus deal; Tourmaline held its CAD 0.50 dividend; Teck launched an ops review around QB and tailings.* Boeing landed 30 more 737-8s (Macquarie) while Alaska Air upsized to 787-10s—capacity and fuel burn still matter when international demand stays sticky.* Niche but telling: Kraken Robotics booked $13M of sonar/battery orders, Dorchester Minerals added Colorado acreage, BW LPG sold an older tanker at a gain. Fleet discipline isn’t just for airlines.Health care & life sciences* United Therapeutics surged on a late-stage win for Tyvaso in IPF—label expansion talk is now justified revenue math. BioNTech posted positive Phase 3 breast-cancer data, Novartis inked a $5.2B cardio collaboration with Argo, and Medtronic’s Hugo robot delivered clean hernia-repair outcomes. When macro jitters rise, data wins the multiple.* HealthEquity raised guidance as HSA yields help, Mineralys upsized an equity raise, Elevance flagged weaker Medicaid margins but kept FY guidance—payers threading the policy needle, as ever.Software & data plumbing* Salesforce said 4,000 support roles are now handled by AI agents, freeing quota-carrying capacity even as near-term guidance disappointed; UiPath, DocuSign, Samsara, Guidewire and Braze all leaned into AI-assisted pipelines and lifted FY views.* Not all AI pixie dust sparkles every quarter: C3.ai guided light and shuffled leadership; GitLab faced second-half nerves. Investors are back to paying for bookings quality and dollar-based net retention, not just acronyms.The bottom line* The market absorbed a tariff curveball, softer labor data, and a semiconductor wobble—and still finished with better breadth and record highs in sight. Rate-cut hopes are doing some of the lifting, but the sturdier tell was where money flowed: into networks, storage, optical, and cloud regions that actually make AI usable, and into companies simplifying portfolios to unlock cash. If next week’s tape keeps rewarding execution over slogans, the rally has legs rather than headlines.Insider Trade UpdatesInsiders don’t always get it right… but they do get the best seats in the house. Here are this week’s trades that made us raise an eyebrow (and maybe place a limit order). As a side note, I try to stay away from insiders buying up their penny stock company. While these can still be great signals, the risk-to-reward ratio isn’t one I find favorable.We keep track of all of these trades on our Google sheet, and then insider returns are quite astounding…Buy the Dip TrackerInsiders buying after meaningful drawdowns — percent and window included.* STTK — Shattuck LabsDirector bought 36,879,576 @ $0.87 after a 62.68% one-year slide. That’s backing up the truck at biotech prices.* BDSX — BiodesixDirector bought 3,488,372 @ $0.43 after a 77.19% one-year drawdown. Deep-value diagnostics; let price confirm the turn.* BLNE — Beeline HoldingsChief Accounting Officer bought 10,000 @ $1.59 after a 24.06% one-month drop. When the numbers person pays up, take note.* BSLK — Bolt Projects HoldingsCTO bought 10,940 @ $3.23 and CEO bought 13,374 @ $3.81 after a 51.18% one-week plunge. Two C-suite bites into a faceplant.Whale & Standout Size ($1M+)Large prints that can set floors (dip whales above not repeated here).* SMC — Summit Midstream: 10% Owner bought 120,160 @ $20.48 ($2.46M).* AFCG — Advanced Flower Capital: Director bought 474,526 @ $4.74 ($2.25M).* MDRR — Medalist Diversified REIT: Chairman/CEO/Pres bought 140,000 @ $12.50 ($1.75M).* REZI — Resideo: Director bought 29,460 @ $34.01 ($1.0M).Officer Skin-in-the-GameExecutives opening their wallets.* TPVG — TriplePoint Venture Growth: CEO bought 109,630 @ $6.69 ($733K); President & CIO bought 109,630 @ $6.69 ($733K).* MSIF — MSC Income Fund: CFO & Treasurer bought 1,800 @ $14.03.* AWRE — Aware: Chief Revenue Officer bought 5,000 @ $2.20.Cluster & Repeat BuyingPatterns that upgrade the signal.* MDRR — Medalist Diversified REIT: 6th and 7th insider buys in 30 days, including $1.75M this week.* REZI — Resideo: 5th insider purchase in 30 days.* TPVG — TriplePoint Venture Growth: 10th insider purchase in 30 days.* HTH — Hilltop Holdings: 4th insider purchase in 30 days.* HSON — Hudson Global: 3rd insider purchase in 30 days.Notable AddsSolid tickets or strategic context.* HII — Huntington Ingalls: Director bought 3,500 @ $272.78 ($955K).* FRHC — Freedom Holding: See Remarks bought 5,725 @ $171.67 ($983K).* LKQ — LKQ Corporation: Director bought 15,000 @ $32.12 ($482K).* TEAM — Atlassian: Director bought 1,455 @ $173.00 (10b5-1 plan).* CBNA — Chain Bridge Bancorp: Director bought 400 @ $29.81.* HTH — Hilltop Holdings: Chairman bought 10,000 @ $35.36.* MDRR — Medalist Diversified REIT: Chairman/CEO/Pres bought 22,899 @ $12.50.* HSON — Hudson Global: Director bought 1,100 @ $9.58.Interesting Trade Ideas & Berkshire

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comQuick Reminders:Our disclosure is in the email footerPortfolio copy trading is available hereTo Simple Side Shareholders — good morning! I am glad to have you join me for another Saturday Sendout. As a reminder, you can find our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and here on Substack! Updates The new format going forward will look similar to this in our weekly updates:* FREE* Market Commentary & News* Quick Insider Trade Updates* Interesting Trade Ideas* Portfolio Performance* PAID* Portfolio Holdings & Updates* Portfolio Strategies, Updates & New Bets* Our Weekly Picks* Mergers & Acquisitions Picks* Top Stock PicksAs a reminder, all of this will be accessible to you via copy trading. Remember that these portfolios ARE NOT GET-RICH-QUICK portfolios. I am focused on long-term market outperformance. There will be updates made to the paid subscriber spreadsheet as well, but I will likely update everyone on those when they are completed! Market CommentaryThe week in one glance* Stocks notched fresh highs Tuesday–Thursday and then cooled on Friday as profit-taking hit mega-cap tech, semis, and cyclicals. Breadth quietly improved midweek with small and mid-caps outrunning the giants, a sign the rally can walk and chew gum at the same time.* Rates drifted rather than lurched, keeping the soft-landing story intact and September cut odds lofty. Oil hovered near $64, gold firmed, and the VIX stayed sleepy until a Friday yawn.Macro & rates* Growth looked sturdier than feared with Q2 GDP revised to 3.3% while weekly jobless claims stayed low, the combination investors usually order when they want easing without the drama. Two-year yields meandered around 3.62%–3.73% and the 10-year around 4.21%–4.33%, leaving the door open for a modest Fed trim next month if PCE doesn’t misbehave.* Housing stayed mixed and consumer gauges were fine, not fantastic; in market terms that’s “just right” because it cools the inflation talk without chilling earnings.Sectors & flows* Communication services led thanks to steady strength in Alphabet and Meta, while energy caught a bid as crude inched higher and balance sheets kept doing the heavy lifting.* Defensives lagged as investors rotated toward risk, and retailers turned in a patchwork quilt where great execution mattered more than category. The equal-weight S&P perked up midweek, hinting that leadership isn’t only a two-stock show.AI, chips & cloud: hype met housekeeping* NVIDIA delivered record revenue and a huge networking print, then reminded everyone that China is complicated and guidance can be… responsible. Shares flinched before the market remembered AI datacenters don’t build themselves.* Marvell’s outlook knocked the wind out of semis on Friday, a reminder that not every AI dollar shows up on the same quarter’s P&L. Dell talked up a path to $20B in AI server sales next year, HP pushed AI PCs past a quarter of its mix and sharpened the cost pencil, and SK hynix flexed with a 321-layer QLC part that doubles capacity—because storage wants in on the AI party too.* Software stole a few scenes: MongoDB ripped after a clean beat, Box nudged guidance higher as larger enterprises lean in, Snowflake and Nutanix talked bigger pipelines as AI-heavy workloads move from slides to spend, and CrowdStrike kept stacking ARR while bolting on data plumbing.Earnings & movers* Dollar General topped estimates and lifted guidance, proving value retail can still find value. Victoria’s Secret tightened execution and raised its sales view. Pure Storage impressed with margin and backlog momentum, which is what you get when customers need faster pipes for smarter apps.* Alibaba missed at the headline but showed double-digit growth ex-disposals and highlighted another quarter of triple-digit AI cloud revenue, then set to refinance a chunky loan—housekeeping that keeps optionality alive.* Caterpillar raised the tariff hit for the year, a useful tell for anyone modeling industrial margins into autumn.Autos, EVs & mobility* Tesla fought a two-front war: deep UK lease discounts and a European sales slump on one side, a jury verdict tied to Autopilot on the other. Plans for a lower-priced model in 2025 remain the demand valve, but competition isn’t waiting. GM recalled Corvette units for a fuel issue and Nissan slipped after Mercedes moved to exit a longstanding stake—classic reminder that strategic ties aren’t forever.Deals, capital & policy moves* Keurig Dr Pepper moved toward buying JDE Peet’s as investors did the spreadsheet and marked the stock down; bold portfolio reshapes usually come with upfront sticker shock.* Energy and defense stayed busy: Crescent Energy agreed to acquire Vital Energy in all-stock fashion to fatten free cash flow, RTX won a big F135 engine order, and Boeing secured maintenance work even as labor talks crept on. AT&T lined up $23B of spectrum to feed its 5G and fiber ambitions—because the network is the business model.* Terumo reached for OrganOx to deepen transplant tech, AbbVie bought rights to a mid-stage depression asset from Gilgamesh, and MannKind added scPharmaceuticals to bulk up in cardiometabolic. In healthcare, Eli Lilly posted positive Phase 3 obesity-pill data and an overall-survival win for Verzenio, while Regeneron and Alnylam advanced an RNA therapy in myasthenia gravis—clinical readouts that point to revenue mix shifting further toward specialty therapies.Oddities & outliers* Charter sweetened Spectrum bundles with Disney’s streaming stack at no extra cost for eligible plans, a tacit nod that “cable vs. streaming” is turning into “connectivity plus content, don’t make me choose.”* Box scores aside, Canada Goose and Aspen Insurance drew buyout chatter and deals, proof that private capital still likes cash-flow stories with a winter coat.Insider Trade UpdatesInsiders don’t always get it right… but they do get the best seats in the house. Here are this week’s trades that made us raise an eyebrow (and maybe place a limit order).We keep track of all of these trades on our Google sheet, and then insider returns are quite astounding…Buy the Dip TrackerInsiders buying after meaningful drawdowns — percent and window included.* ECIA — Encision Inc.CEO bought 1,000,000 @ $0.10 after a 42.35% one-month drop. Surgical entry at penny-stock prices; treat $0.10–$0.12 as the tug-of-war zone.* ECIA — Encision Inc.Director bought 750,000 @ $0.10 after a 42.35% one-month drop. Cluster buying amplifies the signal.* ECIA — Encision Inc.10% Owner bought 2,000,000 @ $0.10 after a 42.35% one-month drop. When both insiders and a 10% holder step in, floors often form.* NTLA — Intellia TherapeuticsDirector bought 100,000 @ $10.03 after a 22.02% one-month slide. Gene-editing dip buy; look for a higher low above ~$10.* FFAI — Faraday FutureGlobal President bought 10,560 @ $2.33 after a 21.31% one-month drop. High beta, high drama—trade the tape, not the story.* CLDI — Calidi BiotherapeuticsDirector bought 150,000 @ $2.00 and 250,000 @ $2.00 after a 43.33% one-week drop. Two prints into a faceplant; watch for base-building above $2.* COTY — Coty Inc.Chief People & Purpose Officer bought 30,000 @ $3.84 after a 24.54% one-week drop.CEO bought 260,000 @ $3.92 after a 24.54% one-week drop. When the C-suite buys the beauty dip, momentum traders bring mirrors.* AFCG — Advanced Flower CapitalDirector bought 375,147 @ $4.07 after a 52.37% one-year drawdown. Deep value or value trap—let price action decide.* STSS — Sharps TechnologyDirectors bought 400,000 / 100,000 / 80,000 / 40,000 @ $6.41 after a 99.13% one-year collapse. That’s not catching a falling knife; that’s restocking the cutlery aisle.* GMGI — Golden Matrix GroupCFO bought 25,000 @ $1.30 after a 21.34% one-month drop. Finance chief averaging down—eyes on follow-through.Standout Size ($1M+)Large checks that can tilt order books, even without explicit “dip” tags.* CEPF — Cantor Equity Partners IV10% Owner bought 900,000 @ $10.00 ($9.0M). Big private-placement bite.* REYN — Reynolds ConsumerDirector bought 159,506 @ $22.99 ($3.67M) and 71,586 @ $23.05 ($1.65M). Household-staples insider stepping up twice.* REZI — Resideo10% Owner bought 46,953 @ $33.55 ($1.58M). Strategic holder topping up.* AVTR — AvantorDirector bought 100,000 @ $12.56 ($1.26M). Industrial life-science pick-and-shovel.* HTH — Hilltop HoldingsChairman bought 30,000 @ $34.84 ($1.05M). Regional-bank confidence check.* ASAN — AsanaDirector bought 446,966 @ $13.74 ($6.14M). Plan-driven cadence but still size.Officer Skin-in-the-GameExecutives opening their wallets (items not already listed above).* TPVG — TriplePoint Venture GrowthCEO bought 122,003 @ $6.46 ($788.7K).President & CIO bought 122,003 @ $6.46 ($788.7K). BDC leadership alignment.* EBC — Eastern BanksharesExecutive Chair bought 44,642 @ $16.71; CEO bought 29,762 @ $16.71. Bank brass buying their own book.* SINT — Sintx TechnologiesChief Investment Officer bought 50,000 @ $3.70 ($185K). Early-stage materials, officer participation noted.* HSON — Hudson GlobalCOO bought 6,813 @ $9.24. Small, but operators buying dips often precede turnarounds.Interesting Trade IdeasI haven’t come up with any beautiful ideas for this upcoming week, but I will give an update on our most recent interesting trade idea. This past week on Monday, I initiated a position in BFST (Business First Bancshares) — which looks to be an undervalued M&A gem in Texas and Louisiana. The company hasn’t made any meaningful gains/losses since then, but I like the position we have in the company with a price just over $25/share. This week, we also sent out a “Berkshire Buy” article (a stock analysis through the lens of Berkshire. This week’s article was on Qualys, and the stock is up 2.31% this week. The company looks great from a growth perspective (5-year growth of EPS is over 20% and 5-year revenue growth is over 10%). A company that is cutting costs and growing revenue

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comTo Simple Side Shareholders — good morning! I am glad to have you join me for another Saturday Sendout. As a reminder, you can find our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and here on Substack! Updates The new format going forward will look similar to this in our weekly updates:* FREE* Market Commentary & News* Quick Insider Trade Updates* Interesting Trade Ideas* Portfolio Performance* PAID* Portfolio Holdings & News (copy trading links)* Flagship Fund, AI-2nd Hand Effect, Tech-Focused Growth* Portfolio Strategies, Updates & New Bets* Our Weekly Picks* Mergers & Acquisitions Picks* Top Stock PicksAs a reminder, all of this will be accessible to you via copy trading. Remember that these portfolios ARE NOT GET-RICH-QUICK portfolios. I am focused on long-term market outperformance. There will be updates made to the paid subscriber spreadsheet as well, but I will likely update everyone on those when they are completed! Market CommentaryBig pictureChop early, rally late. Mega-cap tech slumped midweek, while small/mid caps, homebuilders, and cyclicals quietly outperformed; Friday finished with a broad risk-on pop.* Week-to-date: * Russell 2000 +3.3%* S&P Mid Cap 400 +2.6%* Dow +1.5%* S&P 500 +0.3%* Nasdaq −0.6%.* Rates/vol* 2-yr ~3.69% (down into Fri)* 10-yr ~4.26%* VIX eased back to ~14 after a Thursday spike.Macro & policy* Jackson Hole anticipation dominated flows; futures still lean toward a 25 bp cut in September.* Data mix* NAHB at 32* housing starts +5.2% m/m* permits −2.8%* jobless claims 235k* PMIs showed expansion (Mfg ~53, Svcs ~55).Sector moves* Leaders: Energy, Financials, Materials; Consumer Discretionary (retail/homebuilders) firm.* Laggards: Information Tech (semis and megacaps), parts of Consumer Staples after a big-box wobble.Notable tape & deals (highlights)AI / Semis / Cloud* Intel +5% after SoftBank’s ~$2B equity buy; Arm hired Amazon’s AI chip lead.* Nvidia: working on a China-compliant Blackwell-based part (B30A) while halting H20 production per reports.* Meta + Google inked a 6-year, $10B+ cloud pact; Workday, Zoom, Intuit all lifted AI-tinted outlooks; CrowdStrike added to the IVES AI 30.M&A / PE & financing* Thoma Bravo circling Dayforce; Goldman lining up ~$6B debt.* Nexstar to buy Tegna (with a competing Sinclair proposal still swirling).* Cenovus to acquire MEG Energy (C$7.9B) in oil sands consolidation.* Private/go-privates: Soho House near a take-private; Ross Stores expanding footprint; multiple smaller tuck-ins (Pentair→Hydra-Stop; Assa Abloy→SiteOwl; Rubicon→Janel).* Defense: RTX/Diehl to co-produce Stingers; Lockheed won Trident II work.Consumer / Retail* Target modest beat; TJX, Lowe’s firm; WH Smith flagged an accounting error.* Dick’s + Foot Locker announced a merger plan.* Walmart initiated a shrimp recall across 13 states following FDA testing.Autos / Industrials* Tesla slashed UK lease pricing amid weak July UK sales; later raised the Cybertruck “Cyberbeast” price with added features.* NIO unveiled an ES8 refresh; XPeng deliveries surged.* Boeing: China order chatter; separate labor action hit St. Louis defense lines.Regulatory/legal* Google fined A$36M in Australia over search preinstalls.* Masimo sued U.S. Customs over Apple Watch import approvals.* Microsoft to limit China access to vuln data; Visa shuttered its U.S. open-banking unit.The read-throughBreadth improved as investors rotated beyond mega-cap tech into domestically sensitive and rate-levered areas. Lower yields into Friday helped the pivot. AI infrastructure remains the secular anchor, but export-control headlines keep semis choppy.What I’m watching next* Powell follow-through and PCE next week for confirmation of a September cut.* Semis: China-compliant SKUs, datacenter order visibility, and optical supply tightness (Fabrinet momentum).* Cyclicals vs. megacaps: does small-cap leadership and homebuilder strength persist if yields back up?* Retail: guidance quality vs. resilient consumer narrative.Insider Trade UpdatesInsiders don’t always get it right… but they do get the best seats in the house. Here are this week’s trades that made us raise an eyebrow (and maybe place a limit order).Buy the Dip TrackerInsiders buying after meaningful drawdowns — percent and window included.* LINE — Lineage, Inc.Co-Executive Chair bought $499K @ $40.44 after the stock fell 53.0% over the past year. Buying into a bruised chart; watch for a higher low above the print.* AVNS — Avanos MedicalDirector bought $659K @ $10.99 after a 51.47% one-year slide. Classic mean-reversion setup if shares can base above $11.* EONR — EON ResourcesCFO bought $35.9K @ $0.36 after an 84.69% one-year drawdown. Micro-cap with fireworks; follow-on insider prints would strengthen the signal.* UAA — Under ArmourDirector bought $493K @ $4.93 after a 24.30% one-month drop, and $520K @ $5.20 after a 25.95% one-month drop. Two bites in 72 hours suggest real conviction; bias long on a firm reclaim of $5.20.* QRHC — Quest Resource HoldingDirector bought $25.4K @ $1.70 after a 33.33% three-month decline. Small check, but paired activity on the tape matters.* EOLS — EvolusDirector bought $204K @ $6.82 after a 27.28% one-month slide. Look for a push back above the 20-day with volume.* ACDC — ProFrac Holding10% Owner bought $10.0M @ $4.00 after a 36.78% one-week drop; a second $10.0M @ $4.00 allocation printed as well. Size into stress; $4 looks like the battleground.* OMI — Owens & Minor10% Owner bought $4.39M @ $5.37 after a 26.90% one-month decline, plus $3.71M @ $5.15 as an additional allocation. Scaling into weakness; a third print would upgrade the signal.* MKZR — MacKenzie Realty CapitalGeneral Counsel/Secretary bought $96.9K @ $4.84 after a 25.10% one-month decline. Quiet cluster forming; verify liquidity before acting.Whale Buys (>$10M)Size that can set floors — even without an explicit “dip” tag.* BHC — Bausch HealthDirector bought $312.5M @ $9.00 and lifted vested holdings by 96%. A forklift, not a shopping cart.* MDGL — Madrigal PharmaceuticalsDirector bought $36.9M @ $380.58 and $25.0M @ $364.04. Back-to-back eight-figure conviction in a clinical name.* REZI — Resideo Technologies10% Owner bought $20.7M @ $31.60. Strategic holder adding to the stack.* ATAI — Atai Life Sciences10% Owner bought $19.0M @ $2.19. Big ticket in a beaten-up biotech.* TBCH — Turtle BeachDirector bought $10.0M @ $14.41, lifting stake by 622%. That’s a remodel, not a touch-up.* SHCO — Soho HouseDirector bought $26.4M @ $6.00 via purchase agreement. Large print that still tilts the order book.Officer Skin-in-the-GameExecutives opening their own wallets — historically higher signal than directors.* VVV — ValvolineCFO bought $501.5K @ $39.41, increasing holdings by 2,456%. CFOs see the cash; he backed it.* TPVG — TriplePoint Venture GrowthCEO bought $662K @ $6.30, increasing holdings by 44.9%. Management leaning in on the book.* EFOI — Energy FocusCEO bought $500K @ $1.89, increasing holdings by 13.9%. Small-cap swing with insider alignment.* LLY — Eli LillyCFO bought $494.6K @ $691.79. Rare officer buy at a megacap leader.Interesting Trade IdeasI am going to be placing a small bet on Business First Bancshares (ticker: BFST) Monday at market open. The company is not being valued properly in my eyes, and I think the value is glaringly obvious. BFST is a serial acquirer having purchased multiple companies in 2024 and is looking to complete further M&A in 2025 & 2026. Net income at the bank has been growing at a +30% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) for the past 10 years. I am sure the stock price has followed suit, right? WRONG — the stock has gone from its listing price of $25/share to $25.40/share. Doesn’t quite seem like a 30% CAGR to me. The company also pays a 2% dividend, has multiple market whales quietly buying, and increased their interest-bearing assets by 400K from 2023 to 2024.The downside is that the company remains volatile and doesn’t show any obvious signs of a massive price jump. The hold may be a long one, but I believe that it will reap long-term rewards. The investment play is to invest around 20% of my cash on hand into the company. Given the large run-up in price from the Fed announcement, I don’t think going all in at once is a great play. I am going to invest 5% of my cash with plans to DCA up to 20% on any given price dip. Portfolio PerformanceTracking the portfolio performance is going to look somewhat different for everyone. Not everyone will buy at the same time, not everyone will DCAs the same amount, and not everyone will be willing to hold through the downturns like others. So, performance will vary moderately between investors. The returns shown in Autopilot screenshots (aka my copytrading partner) will represent the average return of all investors who copy my portfolios. PAYING SUBSCRIBERS — you have a link to join the autopilot at a discounted rate when you use the link found in the paid section below. There will be more details in that section as well!The values in column 1 represent last week’s returns, while the values in column 2 represent the monthly return. My exact returns, as well as exact prices, and all that other great stuff can be found by paid subscribers using the paid spreadsheet. If you click on that sentence, it will take you to the new section of the spreadsheet!I would like to note that I wasn’t able to roll over the original positions from the old portfolio into the Autopilot settings. That means I had to “restart” the portfolios just last month. While the returns are missing months of data, it’s nothing I am going to be terribly upset about. Just know that the “real” current returns are much higher than what we will see on autopilot. I am not going to make any major commentary on the portfolios here today; however, in the future, I will be talking and sharing a bit more insight about the portfolios in this section. I am currently

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comTo Simple Side Shareholders — good morning! I am glad to have you join me for another Saturday Sendout. We are finally back on all podcasting platforms as well!If you are new here or unfamiliar with our content, you can see the layout of everything below!* SATURDAY [free]* Market Commentary* Weekly Picks Performance* An Interesting Trade Idea *NEW** Total Portfolio Performance* SATURDAY [paid]* Our Weekly Picks* Mergers & Acquisitions Picks* Top Stock Picks* Micro Cap Stock Picks* Earnings & Options**** Paying subscribers — I will be sending you an email about the plan forward since Double Finance is closing its doors. Be on the watch for an email this week**** I missed this last week as I was sick!Next Weeks Updates I am going to be changing the format of the newsletter next week. Instead of discussing the weekly picks, we are going to be focusing more on the long-term portfolios. Of course, we are going to keep the picks for everyone looking to keep trading weekly, but it is going to be much less of the newsletter. The new format going forward will look similar to this:* FREE* Market Commentary & News* Quick Insider Trade Updates* Interesting Trade Ideas* Portfolio Performance* PAID* Portfolio Holdings & News* Flagship Fund, AI-2nd Hand Effect, Tech-Focused Growth* Portfolio Strategies, Updates & New Bets* Our Weekly Picks* Mergers & Acquisitions Picks* Top Stock PicksAs a reminder, all of this will be accessible to you via copy trading. Remember that these portfolios ARE NOT GET RICH QUICK portfolios. I am focused on long-term market outperformance. Anyone who is constantly promising +50% returns annually is lying. There is one man who is able to do that and his name is Jim Simmons. He is the most secretive man on the planet and refuses to divulge information about how he trades. Do not believe these “guaranteed +50% annual return” con artists. There will be updates made to the paid subscriber spreadsheet as well, but I will likely update everyone on those when they are completed! The Saturday Sendout (commentary)Big pictureStocks ground out fresh records mid-week and finished higher overall, paced by cooler-than-feared CPI, resilient earnings, and a bid into small caps and homebuilders. A hotter PPI print pared rate-cut odds a touch and nudged long yields higher into Friday.* Weekly moves: S&P 500 +0.9%, Nasdaq +0.8%, Dow +1.7%, S&P Mid Cap 400 +1.6%, Russell 2000 +3.1%.* Rate path: CPI in line (headline +0.2% m/m; core +0.3% m/m). PPI surprised to the upside (+0.9% m/m). Markets still lean toward a 25 bp cut in September, but the PPI print trimmed confidence.* Yields: 2-yr ~3.76% (flat on week); 10-yr up to ~4.33% by Friday.* Leadership: Healthcare, Consumer Discretionary, and small caps outperformed; mega-cap tech was mixed; homebuilders rallied.Macro & policy* Inflation: Headline CPI 2.7% y/y; core 3.1% y/y. PPI broad-based gains across stages of production.* Growth pulse: Services PMI hovered near the expansion line; factory orders were soft ex-transportation slightly positive.* Fed expectations: Cut odds remained elevated for September, with debate about follow-on moves into Q4.Sector check* Winners: Healthcare (helped by UNH, LLY momentum), Consumer Discretionary (retail, homebuilders), Materials.* Laggards: Real Estate, parts of Energy, and selected Semis after mixed guides.* Breadth: Equal-weight S&P and small caps outpaced the cap-weighted index on several sessions.Day-by-dayMonday (8/11)* Tape: Early strength faded; S&P -0.3%, Nasdaq -0.3%, Dow -0.5% as traders squared up ahead of CPI.* Chips & trade: Nvidia/AMD reportedly accepted a 15% revenue remittance on China AI-chip sales in exchange for export licenses; semis wobbled.* Capital moves: Ørsted plunged on a $9.4B rights issue to fully fund Sunrise Wind. Western Union agreed to buy Intermex (~$500M).* Company flow: C3.ai cut outlook and reorganized sales; SoftBank weighed a PayPay U.S. IPO; Avantor drew activist pressure; RadNet beat; GSK won FDA priority review (Blujepa).Tuesday (8/12)* Tape: CPI-relief rally to new highs—S&P +1.1%, Nasdaq +1.3%, Dow +1.1%; small caps ripped (R2K +3.0%).* Rates: September cut odds jumped; curve twisted with 2-yr down, 10-yr up.* Corporate: Gildan neared a Hanesbrands deal; Pfizer/Astellas’ Padcev+Keytruda hit key endpoints in bladder cancer; Bakkt pivoted to crypto infrastructure; Kodak outlined pension asset reversion and U.S. pharma capacity plans.Wednesday (8/13)* Tape: More highs with rotation—S&P +0.3%, Dow +1.0%, Nasdaq +0.1%; equal-weight and small caps led.* Deals/defense: Advent to acquire Sapiens ($2.5B). Elbit won a ~$1.6B European contract. Exxon inked exploration off Trinidad & Tobago.* Other movers: Hudbay sold 30% of Copper World to Mitsubishi; TSMC to phase out 6-inch wafers over two years.Thursday (8/14)* Tape: PPI surprise cooled risk appetite; indices mixed (S&P +0.03%, Nasdaq -0.07%, Dow -0.02%); small/mid caps fell ~1.2%.* AI & infra: Cisco set FY26 revenue target $59–60B on AI orders >$2B in FY25; Foxconn guided AI-server revenue +170% y/y for Q3.* Energy/industrials: EPD managed a Houston terminal leak; Halliburton won a North Sea stimulation pact with COP.* Bankruptcy: TPI Composites entered Chapter 11 with DIP financing.Friday (8/15)* Tape: Mixed finish—S&P -0.29%, Nasdaq -0.51%, Dow +0.08%; yields drifted up; VIX stayed contained.* Earnings & guides: Applied Materials posted record Q3 but guided Q4 lower on China uncertainty; still sees FY25 growth. Oracle expanded Google Cloud tie-up to bring Gemini models to OCI. Accenture bought CyberCX to scale APAC cyber.* Standouts: UnitedHealth jumped after Berkshire disclosed a new stake. Precigen surged on FDA approval of Papzimeos for RRP. Nu Holdings delivered strong growth.* Autos/EVs: XPeng and Volkswagen accelerated joint E/E architecture milestones in China.Notable deal & capital flow* M&A / stakes: Western Union → Intermex; Advent → Sapiens; Gildan → Hanesbrands (agreement announced later in week); Centrica/ECP → Grain LNG terminal; Alcon → STAAR Surgical (earlier this week’s flow).* Programs & financing: Uber authorized $20B in buybacks; Coinbase priced $2.6B converts; Meta secured $29B project financing for a Louisiana AI campus.* Restructurings: TPI Composites Ch.11; C3.ai leadership and go-to-market changes.Single-stock highlights* Chips/AI: Nvidia/AMD China-license structure weighed on near-term sentiment; TSMC July sales +26% y/y earlier in the month; Coherent slumped on datacom share concerns.* Healthcare: UNH rallied on Berkshire stake; GSK priority review; Pfizer/Astellas oncology data positive; Precigen won FDA approval; Eli Lilly launched Mounjaro pen in India.* Energy/commodities: Exxon expanded Caribbean exploration; OXY/COP advanced capital efficiency plans; gold eased late-week despite earlier strength.* Retail/consumer: Homebuilders strong; selected e-commerce (JD.com, Vipshop) beat; Roblox fell on safety headlines.“Guru” flow (selected)* Berkshire opened UNH.* Stan Druckenmiller added TSM; Louis Bacon added CCRN; Carl Icahn added CTRI.* Multiple long-onlys rotated toward cyclicals (homebuilders, industrials) and added to semis on weakness.The read-throughThe market rewarded signs of disinflation without growth shock, and breadth improved as small caps and cyclicals caught a bid. A firmer PPI reminds that the Fed still needs comfort to cut, keeping rates-sensitive factors and high-multiple names twitchy around data drops. AI capex and semis remain the swing factor; healthcare leadership broadened the advance.What I’m watching nextHousing data, retail sales, and the next round of Fed speaker cadence for confirmation of September cut odds.Weekly Picks PerformanceOur weekly picks are made in this newsletter (behind the paywall) every week. Now, nearly all of my conventional investing wisdom says that trading stocks weekly on “news” is a terrible idea. One particular quote comes to mind: “Buy bad news, sell good news.” Yet, we are doing the opposite! We are following good news & capitalizing on it weekly. Why does this work? Well, in a “normal” market, they don’t work; however, we are in a “dumb money” market (read about dumb money here). The main idea is that a significant amount of money is being allocated to equity markets without proper investment strategies (aka people trading the news). This creates ample opportunity to capture the alpha (excess returns) by making quick buys/sells in the market. Wondering if it works? See for yourself…We have generated excess returns of 70% on these weekly picks alone.Interesting Trade IdeasEvery once in a while, something strikes me as an opportunity in the market. Maybe I see an undervalued opportunity trending down on bad news, or an industry I want to talk about quickly. That is what you see here — quick bites on top hits!TTD Stock DropWe saw TTD fall a bit further this week, down around 5%. Overall, I think the company is currently undervalued. We did see a 2%-ish jump on Friday open, which shows general positive sentiment surrounding the company. I wouldn’t make a MASSIVE bet on TTD, but any small bet is reasonable at these prices.Healthcare StocksI don’t know what else to say about this. Buffett bought, and we capitalized greatly. This marks the 4th or 5th week in a row I spent calling out healthcare stocks as market laggards. The companies were poised for a comeback, and that is exactly what we have seen happen. UNH ended up rising over 25% on Buffett buying news (alongside other investors), and it seems like the company is now backed in full faith by market whales. UNH was the 6th most purchased company in Q4 by hedge funds, and that comes as no surprise.Here is our callout we made in May: LINK.Apple StockWe called out Apple stock when it fell below $200, and the stock just hit $230 this week. Nothing else to say here other than I made this exact comment: “Timmy Cook has already kissed

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comTo Simple Side Shareholders — good morning! I am glad to have you join me for another Saturday Sendout. We are finally back on all podcasting platforms as well!If you are new here or unfamiliar with our content, you can see the layout of everything below!* SATURDAY [free]* Market Commentary* Weekly Picks Performance* An Interesting Trade Idea *NEW** Total Portfolio Performance* SATURDAY [paid]* Our Weekly Picks* Mergers & Acquisitions Picks* Top Stock Picks* Micro Cap Stock Picks* Earnings & Options**** Paying subscribers — I will be sending you an email about the plan forward since Double Finance is closing its doors. Be on the watch for an email this week**** I missed this last week as I was sick!Changes coming to the newsletter/podcastAlright everyone, I am looking at changing up the format again of this weekly newsletter/ podcast. I want to focus more on the holdings in my portoflios instead of the weekly picks. We will likely keep the weekly picks, but will make them a much part of the newsletter. As I begin to release copy trading, I want to keep everyone informed on the portoflios they are investing in! There will be updates made to the paid subscriber spreadsheet as well, but I will likely update everyone on those when they are completed! The Saturday Sendout (commentary)The market snapped back. After last week’s wobble, buyers showed up early and never really left: the S&P 500 rose 2.4% (just shy of a record), the Nasdaq jumped 3.9% to a new high, and the Dow gained 1.4%. Volatility cooled from a Monday spike back toward the mid-teens even as Treasury yields drifted a bit higher into Friday.What moved the marketMega-cap tech re-took the wheel.NVIDIA notched fresh highs, Apple rallied 8% on a U.S. manufacturing push, and the broader Info Tech group led the tape (+4.3% for the week). A steady drumbeat of AI and chip headlines helped: TSMC’s July sales rose 26% year over year; Samsung won incremental U.S. chip sourcing; and several hyperscale and data-center buildout stories kept sentiment firm.Deals, buybacks, and balance-sheet moves.Flow of corporate actions supported risk appetite. Boeing cleared a key hurdle to acquire Spirit AeroSystems; Amphenol advanced on a $10.5B move for CommScope’s broadband unit; Alcon agreed to buy STAAR Surgical; Uber authorized a $20B repurchase; Coinbase upsized a $2.6B convertible; and Meta lined up $29B in project financing for a Louisiana data-center campus.Defense and industrial spending stayed hot.Palantir’s 10-year Army award and RTX’s 20-year DLA umbrella contract underscored durable U.S. defense outlays. BWX Technologies ripped to records on nuclear program momentum.Tariffs, exemptions, and supply-chain rewiring.Chip tariff chatter stayed loud, but exemptions for key Asia suppliers and continued U.S. fab investment tempered worst-case fears. Auto and EV headlines were mixed: Tesla secured a Texas robotaxi license but wound down its Dojo team and faced a new class action tied to autonomy claims.Macro and rates• Services cool, goods mixed. ISM Services slipped to 50.1, factory orders fell 4.8% m/m (ex-transportation +0.4%), and the trade deficit widened to $60.2B.• Yields up modestly, curve still shallow. The 2-year rose 6 bps to ~3.76%; the 10-year added 7 bps to ~4.29% by week’s end.• Commodities diverged. Crude eased into the mid-$60s; gold held above $3,450. Bitcoin hovered near $117K.Sectors and breadthLeadership was clear: Information Technology and Consumer Discretionary outperformed, with Communication Services close behind. Laggards were Real Estate, Energy, and Health Care. Breadth improved—small caps and equal-weight indexes outpaced the cap-weighted S&P on several sessions—even if mega-caps drove most index points.Notable company highlights• Boeing cleared UK antitrust on Spirit AeroSystems; Amphenol advanced on a major connectivity acquisition; Alcon moved to buy STAAR Surgical.• Uber unveiled a $20B buyback; Coinbase priced $2.6B of converts; PG&E rallied after saying it won’t issue equity for a large capex plan.• Occidental and ConocoPhillips sharpened capital frameworks with debt paydowns, asset sales, and cost cuts.• Gilead raised sales/EPS outlook on HIV momentum; Sunrun surprised to profit as storage attach rates hit records.Weekly Picks PerformanceOur weekly picks are made in this newsletter (behind the paywall) every week. Now, nearly all of my conventional investing wisdom says that trading stocks weekly on “news” is a terrible idea. One particular quote comes to mind: “Buy bad news, sell good news.” Yet, we are doing the opposite! We are following good news & capitalizing on it weekly. Why does this work? Well, in a “normal” market, they don’t work; however, we are in a “dumb money” market (read about dumb money here). The main idea is that a significant amount of money is being allocated to equity markets without proper investment strategies (aka people trading the news). This creates ample opportunity to capture the alpha (excess returns) by making quick buys/sells in the market. Wondering if it works? See for yourself…We have generated excess returns of 70% on these weekly picks alone.Interesting Trade IdeasEvery once in a while, something strikes me as an opportunity in the market. Maybe I see an undervalued opportunity trending down on bad news, or an industry I want to talk about quickly. That is what you see here — quick bites on top hits!TTD Stock DropTTD (Trade Desk) stock dropped 40% this week on tariff concerns and pressure from Amazon. The stock is now up only 16% from 5 years ago. Since 5 years ago, TTD has grown revenue 192% and their FCF has grown 2x. In my eyes, a company that grows 2x and only gains 16% in share price is undervalued and represents a great opportunity.Healthcare StocksThe current headwinds for healthcare are “near-term” in nature, and investments in these companies now will make strong gains in the next 3-5 years. “What gives you opportunities is other people doing dumb things.”The IPO World Still welcoming to IPO flipping! I am writing an article discussing how to do this soon!Total Portfolio PerformanceNow, I know that many of my subscribers are looking for longer-term plays and don’t care too much about the weekly picks. I think that is just fine — our longer-term holdings have also been outperforming. We utilize a dumbbell or barbell portfolio approach with one side offering a long-term “safe/slow” growth (cash, bonds, The Flagship Fund). The other side chases high growth potential (Contrarian Trades, Weekly Picks, Tech-Growth portfolios).This balanced approach has proven effective time and time again. We also offer paying subscribers the ability to look at any and all of our stocks and portfolios with real-time updates here: Check it all out here (for paying subscribers).My portfolio average return is up over 43% YTD.Our contrarian portfolio is up over 80% YTD, followed closely by our weekly picks at +47% returns year to date (these are the picks found in today’s newsletter). The lagging portfolio (based on a buy-and-hold basis) is the Flagship Fund. We expect performance to pick up in the latter parts of the year when markets stabilize. Weekly PicksOkay, let’s get into the picks that have returned 47% YTD and 70% over the past 55 weeks. As always, what you see below is a summary of our investments for this week!🟢THE BUYS🟢

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comTo Simple Side Shareholders — good morning! I am glad to have you join me for another Saturday Sendout. We are finally back on all podcasting platforms as well!If you are new here or unfamiliar with our content, you can see the layout of everything below!* SATURDAY [free]* Market Commentary* Weekly Picks Performance* An Interesting Trade Idea *NEW** Total Portfolio Performance* SATURDAY [paid]* Our Weekly Picks* Mergers & Acquisitions Picks* Top Stock Picks* Micro Cap Stock Picks* Earnings & Options**** Paying subscribers — I will be sending you an email about the plan forward since Double Finance is closing its doors. Be on the watch for an email this week****The Saturday Sendout (commentary)The busiest earnings stretch of the summer was supposed to cement the “AI-lifts-all-boats” narrative. Instead, five trading sessions delivered a sharp reality check. A one-day spike in Microsoft and Meta could not prevent the S&P 500 from sliding 2.4 percent for the week and the Nasdaq from giving back 2.2 percent. By Friday’s close every major U.S. index had logged its worst weekly loss since April, Treasury yields were falling on talk of an early-September rate cut, and the VIX was printing a 20-handle for the first time in six weeks.What moved the market1. Earnings euphoria met guidance gravity.Microsoft’s blow-out Azure quarter and Meta’s record ad revenue sparked a mid-week melt-up, but the optimism faded as Qualcomm, Amazon, Apple, UnitedHealth and Novo Nordisk all trimmed outlooks. Traders were reminded that AI spending can raise the revenue ceiling while crushing near-term margins and balance-sheet flexibility.2. Mega-deals multiplied—but so did antitrust questions.Union Pacific’s agreed takeover of Norfolk Southern would create the first true coast-to-coast American railroad, and Baker Hughes’ bid for Chart Industries redraws the LNG equipment map. Palo Alto’s $25 billion purchase of CyberArk and Palantir’s decade-long $10 billion Army contract pushed the week’s announced deal value above $150 billion. Investors cheered the synergies; regulators have already signaled that rail, security-software and defense consolidation will not sail through unchallenged.3. Global supply chains keep decoupling.Samsung landed a $16.5 billion long-term chip contract, Huawei unveiled an AI server that claims to beat Nvidia’s newest rack, and Tesla lined up $4.3 billion in Korean-made LFP batteries to cut Chinese exposure. At the same time Washington broadened tariff coverage to Canada, India and Taiwan, and the EU agreed to commit $600 billion of fresh investment to the U.S. as part of its 15 percent tariff settlement. Boards are budgeting for permanently higher operating friction.4. Macro mood swung from “resilient” to “fragile” in 48 hours.Consumer confidence hit a three-month high on Tuesday, but Friday’s payroll report showed only 73 000 new jobs and a rising unemployment rate. Rate-cut odds for the September FOMC meeting jumped above 80 percent, flattening the 2-to-10-year spread to its narrowest level since March. Utilities and other defensives were the lone gainers on the week.Sector rundownTechnology finished lower even after Microsoft (+9 percent week-to-date) and Meta (+11 percent) set fresh market-cap records. Weak semiconductor guidance lopped 3 percent off the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.Communication services held flat thanks to Meta, but consumer discretionary dropped alongside Tesla and Amazon as margin pressure became the new buzzword.Industrials fell nearly 3 percent. Rail-equipment suppliers rallied on the Union Pacific-NSC news, but airlines and parcel carriers sagged after United Parcel Service’s cost-heavy quarter.Health care lost almost 3 percent. GSK’s licensing spree and AbbVie’s rumored $1 billion Gilgamesh buy couldn’t offset Novo Nordisk’s guidance cut and new U.S. drug-pricing rhetoric.Energy gave back early gains despite $69-plus crude as long-dated oil demand assumptions were revised lower in several conference calls.Fixed income and currencies• The 10-year Treasury yield fell nineteen basis points to 4.22 percent.• The 2-year dropped to 3.70 percent, taking the implied September cut probability to 86 percent.• The dollar slipped modestly; gold rallied above $3 400 an ounce on safe-haven bids.Looking ahead* July CPI and PPI (next week): any cooling in core services inflation would hard-wire expectations for a September rate cut.* Congressional hearings on rail consolidation: House Transportation and Senate Commerce committees have already scheduled informational sessions.* OPEC+ ministerial: with Brent still below $70, producers face pressure to defend price without ceding market share to U.S. shale.* Apple and Amazon follow-through trades: both firms guided cautiously despite record quarters—options positioning now implies heightened downside risk into Labor Day if unit data soften.Weekly Picks PerformanceOur weekly picks are made in this newsletter (behind the paywall) every week. Now, nearly all of my conventional investing wisdom says that trading stocks weekly on “news” is a terrible idea. One particular quote comes to mind: “Buy bad news, sell good news.” Yet, we are doing the opposite! We are following good news & capitalizing on it weekly. Why does this work? Well, in a “normal” market, they don’t work; however, we are in a “dumb money” market (read about dumb money here). The main idea is that a significant amount of money is being allocated to equity markets without proper investment strategies (aka people trading the news). This creates ample opportunity to capture the alpha (excess returns) by making quick buys/sells in the market. Wondering if it works? See for yourself…We have generated excess returns of 50% on these weekly picks alone.Interesting Trade IdeasEvery once in a while, something strikes me as an opportunity in the market. Maybe I see an undervalued opportunity trending down on bad news, or an industry I want to talk about quickly. That is what you see here!I have been discussing three main ideas over the past few weeks. UNH, AAPL, and IPOs.Healthcare StocksStocks like UNH and ELV are trading so cheap right now that it almost doesn’t make sense not to own the companies. ELV is trading at a forward PE of 7.98, and UNH at a forward PE of 10.65. The current headwinds are “near-term” in nature, and investments in these companies now will make strong gains in the next 3-5 years.The IPO World Last week, I said FIG was a HUGE BUY following the dumb money thesis, and boy did we see some gains from that. If you picked up shares at the $33 IPO price then you made out with a 200% gain last week. If you got shares on the drop at $85, then you came away with 50-70% returns if you sold. Congrats, I will keep everyone informed of incoming IPOs!Total Portfolio PerformanceNow, I know that many of my subscribers are looking for longer-term plays and don’t care too much about the weekly picks. I think that is just fine — our longer-term holdings have also been outperforming. We utilize a dumbbell or barbell portfolio approach with one side offering a long-term “safe/slow” growth (cash, bonds, The Flagship Fund). The other side chases high growth potential (Contrarian Trades, Weekly Picks, Tech-Growth portfolios).This balanced approach has proven effective time and time again. We also offer paying subscribers the ability to look at any and all of our stocks and portfolios with real-time updates here: Check it all out here (for paying subscribers).My portfolio average return is up over 41% YTD.Our contrarian portfolio is up over 70% YTD, followed closely by our weekly picks at +41% returns year to date (these are the picks found in today’s newsletter). The lagging portfolio (based on a buy-and-hold basis) is the Flagship Fund. We expect performance to pick up in the latter parts of the year when markets stabilize. Weekly PicksOkay, let’s get into the picks that have returned 46% YTD and 60% over the past 53 weeks. As always, what you see below is a summary of our investments for this week!🟢THE BUYS🟢

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comTo Simple Side Shareholders — good morning! I am glad to have you join me for another Saturday Sendout. We are finally back on all podcasting platforms as well!If you are new here or unfamiliar with our content, you can see the layout of everything below!* SATURDAY [free]* Market Commentary* Weekly Picks Performance* An Interesting Trade Idea *NEW** Total Portfolio Performance* SATURDAY [paid]* Our Weekly Picks* Mergers & Acquisitions Picks* Top Stock Picks* Micro Cap Stock Picks* Earnings & Options**** Paying subscribers — I will be sending you an email about the plan forward since Double Finance is closing its doors ****The Saturday Sendout (commentary)Weekly Market CommentaryThe last full week of July delivered new closing highs for the S&P 500 and fresh intraday peaks for the Nasdaq, but the real story was what sat beneath the index-level calm: an epic tug-of-war between exuberant AI spending, profit warnings in health care, and a surge of big-ticket deal-making that could redraw several industry maps.Big pictureEquities ground higher—Monday’s trade-deal optimism with the EU and Japan set the tone—and never broke, even as Treasury yields inched back toward 4.4 percent. The VIX slipped under 15 on Friday, suggesting traders have once again written off summer volatility. Breadth, however, stayed thin: more than half of S&P 500 members finished the week in the red, and chipmakers that carried the spring rally paused for breath. Oil drifted toward $65 despite OPEC+ export cuts, helping the inflation narrative but pinching energy shares.Three themes that mattered1. The AI infrastructure arms race just went global.Google’s $1.2 billion, five-year cloud win at ServiceNow clarifies how aggressively hyperscalers will buy share; ServiceNow is obligated to spend almost $5 billion on cloud services through 2030. T-Mobile, Verizon and Crown Castle, meanwhile, all cited President Trump’s expedited permitting order for data-center build-outs as a direct earnings tail-wind. Intel tried to keep pace by unveiling an $18 billion cap-ex plan and a pivot to contract manufacturing. The consequence is two-fold: back-end providers—from Digital Realty to Baker Hughes’ turbine unit—have visibility they haven’t enjoyed since shale’s heyday, but every CFO now faces a capital allocation dilemma as AI costs collide with shareholder-return promises.2. Reshoring and the tariff carousel.Apple’s $500 million pre-payment to MP Materials for U.S-made rare-earth magnets and BHP’s battery alliance with CATL and BYD tell the same story: supply-chain security is now a balance-sheet line item. Intel is consolidating fabs in Vietnam and Malaysia while freezing European projects until it sees what Brussels does with proposed chip subsidies. Meanwhile, the White House floated 15 percent reciprocal tariffs on the EU and Japan—temporarily soothed by talk of agriculture and auto quotas—but the message is clear: corporate planners should assume the 1990s trade framework is gone for good.3. August could be merger month.The FCC signed off on Skydance-Paramount, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern began feeling out a trans-continental rail tie-up, and Union Pacific’s upgrade from Jefferies signals that investors believe regulators might bless at least one mega-rail combination to counterbalance Canadian Pacific–Kansas City. In health care, iTeos, ZimVie and Vicebio all accepted cash bids rather than soldier on alone, while Newmont doubled its repurchase authorization instead of buying another mine—evidence that boards are leaning either to consolidate quickly or buy back shares rather than gamble on elevated asset prices.Sector scoreboard and consequencesTechnology added just under one percent, cushioned by Google and ServiceNow but held back by chip profit-taking and by Samsung’s warning that AI-server demand is not yet big enough to absorb lost handset volume. If memory pricing does not improve by autumn, the semi rally could lose a second leg of support.Communications services led the market thanks to T-Mobile’s blow-out subscriber guide and Alphabet’s cap-ex pledge. Longer term, pairing high wireless cash flow with low-latency data-center traffic puts the telcos back in the secular-growth conversation; the risk is that satellite ventures like T-Satellite balloon cap-ex just as rate cuts get postponed.Health care endured a tale of two tapes. Abivax exploded higher on Phase 3 success, while Centene logged its first miss in four years and Sarepta agreed to pause gene-therapy shipments after three deaths. Investors snapped up contract researchers Medpace and IQVIA, betting that Big Pharma will outsource trials aggressively rather than cut R&D. The larger implication: dispersion inside the sector is widening, and stock pickers finally have something to do.Industrials rode GE Vernova’s and Baker Hughes’ data-center orders, plus speculation that CSX or Kansas City Southern could end up the next rail target. If Union Pacific–Norfolk Southern proceeds, expect the Surface Transportation Board to demand divestitures—short-line operators could be the hidden winners.Macro and the FedNew-home sales ticked up, services PMIs accelerated, and initial jobless claims fell to 217 k—none of it weak enough to revive September rate-cut bets. Core inflation is easing, but a sub-15 VIX and record equity prices leave the FOMC little political cover for early easing. For now, the bond market appears willing to finance the AI-data-center boom at just under 4.5 percent on the 10-year; should that rate back up meaningfully, the equity rally’s narrow leadership becomes a bigger liability.What to watch next week* Mega-cap earnings: Apple, Amazon and Meta must justify $300 billion of fresh AI cap-ex in the pipeline.* July payrolls, due Friday: consensus sits at 185 k. A hotter print will push December cut odds below 50 percent.* Capitol Hill: the Senate Commerce Committee holds a hearing on large-language-model copyright—watch for clues on potential AI liability rules.* DOJ’s 30-day window to appeal the FCC’s Paramount decision expires; any intervention would rattle the bubbling M&A trade.Bottom line: Momentum, liquidity and an AI narrative continue to overpower valuation fatigue and policy risk, but leadership keeps getting thinner. Until breadth improves or bond yields break out, expect rallies to remain self-reinforcing—and vulnerable to single-headline reversals.Weekly Picks PerformanceOur weekly picks are made in this newsletter (behind the paywall) every week. Now, nearly all of my conventional investing wisdom says that trading stocks weekly on “news” is a terrible idea. One particular quote comes to mind: “Buy bad news, sell good news.” Yet, we are doing the opposite! We are following good news & capitalizing on it weekly. Why does this work? Well, in a “normal” market, they don’t work; however, we are in a “dumb money” market (read about dumb money here). The main idea is that a significant amount of money is being allocated to equity markets without proper investment strategies (aka people trading the news). This creates ample opportunity to capture the alpha (excess returns) by making quick buys/sells in the market. Wondering if it works? See for yourself…We have generated excess returns of 50% on these weekly picks alone.Sadly, we haven’t started our 53rd week off with a bang, but I am still confident in the returns we can generate from the “dumb money” in the current markets.Interesting Trade IdeasEvery once in a while, something strikes me as an opportunity in the market. Maybe I see an undervalued opportunity trending down on bad news, or an industry I want to talk about quickly. That is what you see here!I have been discussing three main ideas over the past few weeks. UNH, AAPL, and IPOs.United HealthWe are watching UNH closely as earnings approach; we expect poor results on the day of reporting and a 5-15% drop in price. However, if things go well, upside looks like it will be a minimum of +10% gain within the day. AppleApple has been crushing it since we last mentioned the stock was a buy at sub $200 levels. With earnings coming up after market close on the 31st, we could be looking at a rough or incredible August.The IPO World Major alert in the IPO world here: Figma (FIG) is set to IPO at $24 - $28 with a max price of $33.60 a share. This makes the company worth around $16 billion — a stark drop from the $20 billion buy offer Adobe made last year.Based on Adobe’s buy offer, Figma has at least 25% upside in the short term. Based on Adobe’s market cap (as Figma is a competitor), there is 10x potential for the stock in the long run. Figma will make a great IPO flip, but I am likely going to hold a majority of the stock for the long run.Total Portfolio PerformanceNow, I know that many of my subscribers are looking for longer-term plays and don’t care too much about the weekly picks. I think that is just fine — our longer-term holdings have also been outperforming. We utilize a dumbbell or barbell portfolio approach with one side offering a long-term “safe/slow” growth (cash, bonds, The Flagship Fund). The other side chases high growth potential (Contrarian Trades, Weekly Picks, Tech-Growth portfolios).This balanced approach has proven effective time and time again. We also offer paying subscribers the ability to look at any and all of our stocks and portfolios with real-time updates here: Check it all out here (for paying subscribers).My portfolio average return is up over 43% YTD.Our contrarian portfolio is up over 80% YTD, followed closely by our weekly picks at +46% returns year to date (these are the picks found in today’s newsletter). The lagging portfolio (based on a buy-and-hold basis) is the Flagship Fund. We expect performance to pick up in the later parts of the year when markets stabilize. Weekly PicksOkay, let’s get into the picks that have returned 46% YTD and 80% over

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comI have a new format for you this week! We are — right out of the gate — going to discuss some of the most interesting moves made by market whales, corporate insiders, and the wonderful folks up on the hill (politicians).As always, I appreciate your feedback. Let me know what you thought of the newsletter today using the link below:Quick Politician HitsThe five most recent politician trades indicate a bullish market trajectory, particularly with Apple and Amazon, which experienced significant buying from Democrat Cleo Fields of Louisiana. While Foxx and Fields were the only two buyers on the most recent trades list, they were among 10 total politicians who made trades in the market over the past month. Those 10 traders executed 65 trades, with a total volume of $6.91 million. What stocks were they trading? AAPL — 9 trades — 1 politicians — +6.44% returns over the past monthNVDA — 8 trades — 1 politicians — +13.82% returns over the past monthAMZN — 7 trades — 1 politicians — +7.46% returns over the past monthGOOGL — 2 trades — 1 politicians — +6.73% returns over the past monthJPM — 2 trades — 2 politicians — +13.00% returns over the past monthSNOW — 2 trades — 1 politicians — +5.42% returns over the past monthBullish or Bearish?The 5-year average Politician Buy/Sell ratio is 1.03 and the current ratio is 2.19. This indicates BULLISH SENTIMENT from politicians!Quick Guru UpdatesWe don’t have any of the filings from Guru’s 13F filings for Q2 of 2025, and until we do, it is hard to know what moves are being made by these folks. What we are going to take a peek at instead are the general trends we are seeing across all market sectors. Top Bought SectorsTop Sold SectorsTop Owned SectorsTop Options TradedThe Insider Intelligence ReportWelcome to your weekly dose of insider intelligence, where we decode the moves of those who know their companies best. This week's data reveals a fascinating tale of two markets: mega-cap executives cashing out at record highs while biotech insiders are doubling down on their beaten-down stocks. Let's dive into the smart money's playbook.Key ThemesThe patterns that matter mostThe Great Tech Cash-Out Continues: Silicon Valley's finest are still hitting the sell button with religious fervor. From Jeff Bezos unloading $737M in Amazon to NVIDIA insiders selling into the AI euphoria, tech executives are treating their stock options like winning lottery tickets.Biotech Bottom-Fishing: While tech insiders sell, biotech executives are buying with both hands. Cidara Therapeutics saw a massive $100M insider purchase, while Kymera Therapeutics insiders added $43M worth of shares. These aren't small bets – they're conviction plays.The Walmart Waltons Keep Selling: The retail royalty continues their methodical wealth diversification, with another $37M sale this week. Their track record? Not great for short-term holders, but their selling pattern suggests they're managing wealth, not fleeing a sinking ship.Top 3 Insider Buys: The Conviction PlaysWhen insiders put serious money where their mouth is1. Cidara Therapeutics (CDTX) - $100M Director PurchaseThe Play: A director just dropped $100 million on 2.27 million shares at $44.00, increasing their holdings by 208%. This isn't pocket change – it's a statement.Why It Matters: When someone risks nine figures on a biotech stock, they either know something we don't or they're supremely confident in the pipeline. CDTX is up 2% since the purchase, suggesting the market likes what it sees.The Risk: Biotech is binary – drugs either work or they don't. But $100M suggests this insider has seen compelling data.2. Kymera Therapeutics (KYMR) - $43M Combined Director PurchasesThe Play: Two directors combined for $43M in purchases, with one buying 1.31M shares and another adding 317K shares, both at $44.00.Why It Matters: Multiple insiders buying simultaneously is rare and powerful. It suggests board-level confidence in upcoming catalysts or undervaluation.The Upside: KYMR is trading near recent lows, making this a classic "buy the dip" scenario with insider validation.3. PVH Corp (PVH) - $1M CEO PurchaseThe Play: The CEO bought $1M worth of shares at $63.92, increasing holdings by 6.2%. While smaller than our biotech plays, CEO purchases carry special weight.Why It Matters: CEOs rarely buy their own stock unless they're confident about the business trajectory. PVH has been beaten down, making this a potential turnaround play.The Context: Retail has been tough, but insider buying often precedes sector rotations.Top 3 Insider Sells: The Profit-Taking ParadeWhen insiders cash in their chips1. Amazon (AMZN) - $737M Bezos SaleThe Sale: Jeff Bezos sold 3.32M shares for $737M, his 17th largest sale out of 62 total transactions.The Reality Check: This is wealth management, not panic selling. Bezos has been methodically diversifying for years through his 10b5-1 plan.The Takeaway: Don't read too much into this. When you're worth $170B, selling $737M is like us selling a few hundred dollars of stock.2. Oracle (ORCL) - $267M CEO SaleThe Sale: CEO sold 1.26M shares for $267M, reducing holdings by 53% – now that's significant.The Warning: Unlike Bezos's diversification, this CEO just cut his stake in half. Oracle stock was up 32% in the month before the sale, suggesting profit-taking at perceived highs.The Signal: When a CEO cuts their holdings by half, pay attention. This could signal limited upside ahead.3. BridgeBio Pharma (BBIO) - $154M Insider SaleThe Sale: A 10% owner sold 3.5M shares for $154M, reducing their stake by 15.9%.The Timing: Stock was up 25% in the month before the sale – classic "selling the rip" behavior.The Implication: Even in biotech's hot streak, some insiders are taking profits. This suggests the easy money might be made.Important Buys: The Sleeper PicksSmaller bets that could pay bigDick's Sporting Goods (DKS) - Director's $501K PurchaseA director bought 2,637 shares at $190.01, increasing holdings by 77%. Retail insiders buying is noteworthy given sector headwinds. This could signal confidence in holiday season performance or market share gains.LTC Properties (LTC) - EVP's $346K PurchaseAn EVP bought 10,000 shares at $34.63, increasing holdings by 178%. REITs don't usually see insider buying unless management sees significant undervaluation or improving fundamentals.Terns Pharmaceuticals (TERN) - CFO's $39K PurchaseThe CFO bought 10,000 shares at $3.93, increasing holdings by 67%. Small dollar amount but significant percentage increase suggests confidence in pipeline developments.Important Sells: The Warning SignalsRed flags worth watchingServiceTitan (TTAN) - Multiple Insider Sales Totaling $47MDespite being a recent IPO, insiders are already selling. Multiple executives sold shares around $105-108, including the CEO, President, and CFO. New public companies with immediate insider selling often struggle.Walmart (WMT) - Continued Walton Family SalesThe Walton family continues their methodical selling with another $37M transaction. Their historical win rate is poor (20-57% depending on timeframe), suggesting these sales often precede weakness.NVIDIA (NVDA) - Persistent Executive SellingDespite AI euphoria, NVIDIA insiders continue selling. The President sold $35M worth, while directors and EVPs also reduced positions. When insiders sell into strength consistently, it suggests limited upside.The Insider Intelligence PortfolioTurning insider knowledge into actionable strategies1-Week Portfolio (High Risk/High Reward)Riding the momentum wavesLong Positions (60%):* CDTX (20%): Massive insider buying could trigger momentum* KYMR (20%): Multiple director purchases suggest near-term catalyst* BTBT (10%): Up 12% today, insider buying at $2.00 looks prescient* SEZL (10%): Up 6% today with insider selling – contrarian momentum playShort Positions (40%):* TTAN (20%): Fresh IPO with immediate insider selling is bearish* HOOD (20%): Multiple insiders selling, stock down 4% alreadyStrategy: Capitalize on immediate market reactions to insider activity. High volatility expected.1-Month Portfolio (Medium Risk)Balancing conviction with cautionCore Long Positions (50%):

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.comTo Simple Side Shareholders — good morning! I am glad to have you join me for another Saturday Sendout. If you are new here or unfamiliar with our content, you can see the layout of everything below!* SATURDAY [free]* Market Commentary* Weekly Picks Performance* An Interesting Trade Idea *NEW** Total Portfolio Performance* SATURDAY [paid]* Our Weekly Picks* Mergers & Acquisitions Picks* Top Stock Picks* Micro Cap Stock Picks* Earnings & Options**** Paying subscribers — I will be sending you an email about the plan forward since Double Finance is closing its doors ****The Saturday Sendout (commentary)I realized that my weekly commentary should make you the most knowledgeable person in the room about everything happening in the markets. I can do that by either diving into one issue or going a mile wide and an inch deep. Today, we are going to be testing the mile-wide and inch-deep update! Please let me know what you think by using the button below!Now, into the weekly news…The first few days of Q3 brought a little turbulence, a few record highs, and a whole lot of EV headlines. Small and mid-caps stole the spotlight, while mega-caps took a breather. Tech slipped, materials surged, and Tesla… did both.Market Overview:* The S&P 500 kissed a new record midweek but ended just as high: small-cap and value stocks led, tech cooled off.* Nvidia and Alphabet lost altitude, but Apple and Tesla came in clutch — Tesla with a surprise China delivery rebound, and Apple with a Jefferies upgrade.* Bond yields ticked higher, gold sparkled, and oil bounced above $66. Bitcoin? Still over $100K but under pressure.Sectors:* Winners: Energy (+1.7%), Materials (+1.3%), Info Tech (+1.3%) early on* Losers: Health Care (-1.0%, thanks Centene), Comms (-1.2%), and Tech (-1.1%) on day one* Small and mid-cap indexes outperformed their heavyweight siblings.EV Rollercoaster:* Tesla: June China sales rose for the first time in 8 months, but Denmark deliveries collapsed 62%. Shares whipsawed — down 5.8% Tuesday, up 4.97% Wednesday. Elon reportedly took over sales ops himself. Subtle.* XPENG: +224% YoY in June deliveries. Indonesia expansion. Global flex.* Zeekr: +113.9% YoY deliveries but slipped MoM.* Li Auto: -24% YoY. Forecast trimmed due to a system upgrade.* NIO: +17.5% YoY June; Q2 up 25.6%. Quietly steady.Deal-Making & Drama:* Renault took an €11.2B accounting hit over its Nissan stake. Non-cash, but headline-grabbing.* Standard Chartered hit with a $2.7B lawsuit in Singapore over the 1MDB scandal.* KKR went shopping: £4.1B for Spectris, Stockholm housing deal with Reliwe.* PKG bought Greif’s containerboard biz for $1.8B — boring name, big box gains.* Zscaler raised $1.5B in convertibles. No interest. Literally.* Bombardier inked a $1.7B jet deal with 70-plane options. Sky’s the limit.* Baidu, Boeing, and BASF reshuffled their execs. Musical chairs, corporate edition.Headlines You Might’ve Missed:* Alibaba launched a $7B subsidy war to fight PDD & JD in instant commerce.* Lockheed Martin scored nearly $3B for Aegis missile defense upgrades.* Verint jumped 16% on Thoma Bravo buyout talks.* Intel may ditch its 18A chip — 14A is the new hotness.* Foxconn pulled staff from Indian iPhone plants. Apple’s offshoring strategy might hit a snag.* Google owes $314M in a data misuse case. Appeal pending.* U.S. Bancorp bumped its dividend and kept the $5B buyback machine running.* Figma filed for IPO under ticker FIG. Coming soon to a terminal near you.Last but not least:* Merck and Regeneron scored key FDA wins for Winrevair and Lynozyfic, respectively.* CAVA Group got the KeyBanc “Chipotle 2.0” nod — shares popped.* Coinbase acquired LiquiFi to boost its crypto infrastructure game.Weekly Picks PerformanceFor weeks, maybe months now, I have been saying that short-term trading outperforms when there is instability and volatility in the markets. This is directly in line with what I mentioned before: people are overbuying good news and overselling bad news.This is why our weekly trades portfolio has been performing so well. If you look at our returns, you’ll notice that our weekly picks portfolio size has begun to separate itself from the SPY over the past few weeks.Interesting Trade IdeasWe have been following two stocks closely: UNH & AAPL. We have also been a proponent of “IPO-flipping”UNH has been experiencing heavy buying from insiders, institutional buyers, and politicians while the stock is down 39% YTD on reports of fraud. UNH stock was basically even this week, though it did run up to $328 before returning to $308.AAPL was the recipient of personalized Trump tariff attacks and is one of the few stocks that is still down drastically from the beginning of the year: -16.37% YTD. AAPL was up around 6% this past week.This week, major news came out that affected both UNH and AAPL stock — just in very different ways. Let’s start with the bad and end with the good. Why did UNH run up to $320 just to get crushed and drop to $308 before the end of the week? Well, we can thank Centene and Medicaid cuts. The quick and dirty explanation of what happened is that Centene spent more money and made less. They insured patients for cheaper premiums and those patients ended up being more sick than they expected. This, in addition to Medicaid cuts, means that Centene (CNC) is going to take massive losses (at least in the short-term). For this reason, they had to pull their annual guidance which resulted in a 40% drop in their stock price. By the way… Medicaid programs account for over 57% of CNC’s revenue. The drop in their stock price is absolutely warranted as Medicaid cuts will directly affect their bottom line. This news negatively affected most other players in the space, like UNH and OSCR. UNH only derives 15% of its revenue from Medicaid, so the stock’s drop isn’t exactly warranted in this situation.The good news, comes from AAPL’s side of things. Apple had a couple of things happen this week that have been driving it’s gains. * iPhone sales grew in China by around 8%* News that the AI-powered Siri is likely going to get assistance from an acquisition or strategic partnership* Stock upgrades from analysts at major firmsIPO news continues to show there is money to be made in quick IPO flips:* EMPG* Offer date: 7/2* Returns: 8.75%* GRAN* Offer date: 7/1* Returns: 4.91%* JCAP* Offer date: 6/26* Returns: 23.56%I am going to continue to watch UNH, AAPL, and IPOs for opportunities. I am also looking at taking major positions in the health insurance space.Total Portfolio PerformanceNow, I know that many of my subscribers are looking for longer-term plays and don’t care too much about the weekly picks. I think that is just fine — our longer-term holdings have also been outperforming (given that you are following the DCA approach that I recommend). We utilize a dumbbell portfolio approach. With one side offering a long-term “safe” portfolio (our Flagship Fund & TSS 50), and the other going for growth (Contrarian Trades, Weekly Picks).This balanced approach has proven effective time and time again. We also offer paying subscribers the ability to look at any and all of our stocks and portfolios with real-time updates here: Check it all out here (for paying subscribers).My portfolio average return is up to 38.47% YTD.Our contrarian portfolio is up over 66% YTD, followed closely by our weekly picks at +44% returns year to date (these are the picks found in today’s newsletter). The lagging portfolio (based on a buy-and-hold basis) is the Flagship Fund. We expect performance to pick up in the later parts of the year when markets stabilize. Weekly PicksOkay, let’s get into the picks that have returned 44% YTD and 68% over the past 50 weeks. As always, what you see below is a summary of our investments for this week!🟢THE BUYS🟢