This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.com

Enjoy this article thanks to Cash App!

Reminders: Copy Trading HerePortfolio Views HereMacro Indicators HereResearch Reports Here

Good Morning, Simple Side Shareholders

I like how we have been operating over the past couple of weeks in our weekly Saturday Sendout. We have been jumping right into the Macro analysis that we have running on our data website (https://thesimpleside.news/macro-indicators).

Let’s start with our general macro overview…

Macro Overview

The current macro environment is a hold from my perspective. For those of you who do not know, “my perspective” incorporates 12 different macro metrics, including “The Buffett Indicator,” the spread between the 2yr and 10yr yields, inflation data, and more.

So what does a hold mean, and what is driving that general market sentiment?

A rough bond market and an overvalued stock market are currently competing against a strong gold market. That battle is resulting in a stalemate in my models.

Every week, as you know, our website is updated with the newest macro model. That model includes a weekly allocation update (which is made every Friday) and a macro regime rating across the three asset classes. The allocation is made between 3 tickers: TLT (representing bonds), SPY (representing equities), and GLD (representing gold).

You can see that the weight is still extremely heavily skewed towards GLD holdings. I think this speaks volumes about the underlying data driving the market. I have been saying for weeks now that the market has been under the wrath of investors’ emotions for a LONG time.

Yes, the SPY is up 0.76% YTD, but in general, there is no data behind this to support the continued increase in price. In fact, if you take a look at the YTD rankings our model has attributed to the SPY, you’ll notice that for the past 10 days, we have been sitting in the “hold” and “sell” categories, and remain in a “sell” regime.

The other thing our model doesn’t like right now? Bonds.

Here is a look at the past 3 months of ratings from the macro indicator on bonds… YIKES.

We have remained in a state of “hold” to “strong sell” for the past 3 months in a row. Now, we have seen TLT start to rise in the past few days, but in general, the model has been keeping us far, far, far away from bonds.

Now, let’s talk about something that our model has been loving… gold.

Over the past three months, we have seen “Strong Buy” and “Buy” ratings on gold almost exclusively. Over those 3 months, GLD is up 6%. If you follow the “Weekly Allocations” you’ll recall that our model has been allocating over 80% of the portfolio to GLD since the beginning of this year.

Total Macro Portfolio Returns

Okay, now you kinda have a feel of the general macro environment. Bonds and equities are underperformers and rated “sell” showing signs of a “risk off” regime. Gold and commodities on the other hand are showing signs of risk on and have taken over the allocation YTD. So, if you were keeping up with all of this and rebalancing your portfolio every Friday in accordance with our allocations how would your portfolio be performing YTD?

I started a new account on SOFI that I am using to track the performance of the Macro indicators and the allocations between GLD, SPY, and TLT, and YTD we are up 5.69%.

I will be adding the Macro Portfolio to the “Portfolios” page of the website soon!

Weekly Roundup

What the sector chart says

Returns this week were brought to you by steadier, cash-generating sectors. Basic Materials rose +3.32%, Energy +3.13%, and Utilities +3.05%. Real Estate added +2.11% and Industrials +1.82%. When investors move toward these groups, faster-growing areas usually cool off — Technology -0.61%, Healthcare -1.32%, Communication Services -0.10% did exactly that. Rates dipped midweek and finished a bit higher, with the 10-year Treasury near 4.23% on Friday. Mortgage rates around 6.06% helped housing activity. Gold set fresh records (a signal that investors wanted some safety), while oil near $59–61 modestly helped consumers and transportation. Semiconductors improved late in the week on stronger guidance from Taiwan Semiconductor; big banks had mixed days as headlines circled credit-card interest caps and Federal Reserve independence.

Outlier events

* Nationwide Verizon outage with $20 credits. Negative for Verizon in the short term due to service issues and bill credits; limited competitive spillover.

* Proposed one-year 10% cap on credit-card APRs. Negative for major card issuers and large banks because it would cut interest income and likely tighten credit availability.

* TSMC’s stronger outlook and higher capex. Positive for chipmakers and equipment suppliers by signaling durable AI and data-center demand into 2026.

* Mortgage rates at a three-year low. Positive for homebuilders and housing-linked spending as financing improves.

* Gold and silver at records. Positive for precious-metals miners and a sign investors kept some defense in portfolios.

* Justice Department–Fed headlines. Negative for large financial firms because added policy uncertainty tends to curb risk appetite.

Insider transactions

* Delta (DAL): CEO sold ~$12.3M — the only airline sale we noted this week.

* Redwire (RDW): A 10% holder filed multiple large sales (well over $200M combined), concentrating selling pressure in one space/defense name.

* WR Berkley (WRB): A 10% owner bought shares twice (about $88M combined), steady accumulation in property-casualty insurance.

* Aktis Oncology (AKTS): Multiple buys (over $75M total) signaled early-stage confidence in biotech.

* Additional notable moves: sales at Diversified Energy (DEC), UWM (UWMC), Jefferson Capital (JCAP), IPG Photonics (IPGP), Madrigal (MDGL), and Airbnb (ABNB).

Overall this week, insider buying clustered in insurance and biotech, while selling centered on one space name and a handful of consumer and finance names.

Analyst changes

Upgrades leaned toward semiconductors and the largest platforms — Applied Materials, Broadcom, Microsoft, Oracle, Netflix — reflecting confidence in AI-related spending and execution at scale. Intel was lifted to Neutral. On the defensive/consumer side, PepsiCo and Walmart picked up support. Roche and L’Oréal were marked to Neutral/Hold. The clearest message: analysts favored chip equipment, leading chip suppliers, and high-quality mega-caps.

This week, investors preferred steady sectors while growth areas paused. Rates finished slightly higher, metals stayed strong, chips improved late, and housing benefited from lower mortgages. For next week, the key swing factor is the path of yields: easing yields typically help growth stocks and longer-duration tech; if yields firm up, value-tilted sectors (Materials, Energy, Utilities) are more likely to keep the lead.

Stock Research Reports

I have been MIA when it comes to writing my research reports… at the beginning of the year I was finalizing the new website and building the new Flagship Fund portfolio (both of which took priority over my research reports).

Now that both of these are finished, I can shift my focus back to writing and building out new stock research reports!

Oh, and by the way, our research reports have been CRUSHING IT!

If you are a paying subscriber, you can head over to https://thesimpleside.news/research to get access to all of our historical and current picks.

Currently, we have posted a total of 14 picks, and of those 14 we have 7 closed trades that are winners and 2 closed trades that are losers. So, we have a total of 9 closed positions.

We have 5 open positions and of those we have 4 picks that are in the green, and 1 (ticker: NICE) that is in the red.

I will begin posting new picks this week! The first one that I am coming out with is a very high risk reward play. I don’t talk about these kind of picks very often and this will be reserved for paying subscribers only.

Portfolio Information

Paid subscribers get direct access to all of these portfolios & real-time updates. My portfolios are available for paid subscribers to access in three places:

Joining paid here: LINKCopy trading On Autopilot: LINKViewing them on my website: LINK

I am going to be adding the Second hand AI and the Tech growth portfolios to the website in the portfolios tab this weekend, so be on the lookout for those updates!

Now let’s get into all of my portfolios, returns, and details