Hello All,
To jump straight into it, it’s been a mixed week across the indices given the excitement around the recent release of META’s ‘Muse,’ which, in turn, has reignited the AI trade, leading to quite the outperformance amongst Tech on the week, whereas the other side of the trade is how lackluster breadth continues to remain given the continued surge in the 10Y as the conflict within the Middle East remains unresolved, along with already lingering inflation worries & finally, the economy continuing to hold in and remain quite strong too.
Nevertheless, the Nasdaq is, of course, the best performing of the indices on the week, currently higher by just over 270bps, whereas Small Caps are the worst performing of the indices, lower by just over 70bps on the week.
For anyone who wants to follow an actively managed portfolio in real time:
I’ve joined Plutus as the cleanest, day-to-day way to track an actively managed portfolio in real time. It’s a live dashboard that’s broader, more diversified, actively managed by me, & updated continuously.
The Eliant Flagship is published on RunPlutus.
Once your Plutus account is approved, you’ll have the option to allocate right away. If you do, it’s straightforward: create an account, link your brokerage (Available only for IBKR at this time), & select the Eliant Flagship (or any of the baskets I’ve built). Your money stays in your account, and trades, position changes, and rebalances are replicated automatically so there’s nothing manual to manage. The idea is to make it easier to access an actively managed portfolio run by me without the overhead of traditional fund structures or high minimums, whilst you keep full custody of your assets & I stay focused on research, positioning, and portfolio construction.
Earlier in 2024, we launched a series titled Educational Pieces, covering a wide range of topics, many of which were suggested directly by you all (4-Part Series).
For those who may have missed the first installment, it covered topics including:
General background / knowledge on all option strategies
In-depth talk on risk / reversals & how to go about expressing / utilizing them
Options Structuring
When to used naked calls / puts vs. spreads
Choosing expiration dates
Identifying key pivots / supports / resistance zones
General briefing on stock gaps
What to look for in regards to fundamentals
Implementing fundamental / macro / technicals into a trade
Hedging
Creating risk/reward setups
Taking profits / managing losses
Overall Process
Book recommendations
A link to the original Educational Piece can be found here .
Given the positive feedback and how useful many of you found the first installment, we followed up with Educational Piece: Part Deux earlier in 2025 & for those who may have missed, a link to the piece can be found here & we then went on to release Educational Piece: Part Trois which can be found here.
And finally, the most recent installment, Educational Piece: Part Quatre, can be found here.
‘Risk management is the silent prerequisite for compounding & true wealth is built not by chasing the highest returns but by ensuring the survival necessary to realize them.’
Before we jump into the recap, in looking at the week thus far, as we had highlighted earlier, the strength on the week has mostly been driven by Tech-related names, hence the general outperformance by the Nasdaq on the week, with both the Growth & Momentum factors also leading, as they are the best performing groups on the week thus far, whereas lower-volatility & value-oriented groups have been the worst performing factors, again, due to the general sensitivity to the selloff in duration.
And in regard to the specific factors and or ‘baskets’ we’ve built on Plutus, here are the best performers year-to-date:
2. Rebuilding U.S. Industrial Sovereignty
3. Mission Critical Security Stack
4. Industrial and Auto Analog Recovery
Whereas on the flip side, the worst performing baskets year-to-date have been:
Moving along, the most interesting dynamic as of late has been just how violent the deterioration of breadth has gotten under the hood, despite Spooz, for instance, sitting just 140bps off the highs, as for now, just 26% of stocks remain above the 20D, which is quite an oversold reading & is starting to slowly encroach on a more extreme oversold reading, although not quite there yet.
And similar can be said on a broader timeframe too, as in the medium term, the % of stocks above the 50D has fallen toward 30%, which, again, is an oversold reading that is slowly starting to encroach on a more ‘extreme’ oversold reading.
And on top of the above, despite Spooz sitting just 140bps off all-time highs, the Fear-Greed index has worked its way firmly back into ‘fear’ territory, once again emphasizing that under-the-hood, we’ve seen quite the ‘reset’ given the recent deterioration in breadth followed by the recent rise in the 10Y.
Historical context of the Fear-Greed Index overlaid with the S&P:
