The Simple Side's Saturday Sendout: Copy Trading For Paying Subscribers & A New Interesting Trade Idea*

To 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 Picks

As 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 Commentary

Big picture

Chop 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-through

Breadth 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 Updates

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 (and maybe place a limit order).

Buy the Dip Tracker

Insiders 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-Game

Executives 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 Ideas

I 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 Performance

Tracking 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 taking baby steps to make sure I like the format of everything.

Portfolio Holdings & News (copytrading links)