The Simple Side's Saturday Sendout: A New Format Coming Soon!

To 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/podcast

Alright 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 market

Mega-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 breadth

Leadership 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 Performance

Our 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 Ideas

Every 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 Drop

TTD (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 Stocks

The 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 Performance

Now, 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 Picks

Okay, 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🟢