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Market Wisdom

“Everyone has the brain power to make money in stocks. Not everyone has the stomach.”- Peter Lynch

About 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 period

These 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 Roundup

Stocks 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 Research

Our 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-research

Now, 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 Information

Overextended & Oversold Positions

Portfolio 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.

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