Goldilocks Lives On
Hello All,
Jumping straight into it, despite the lack of economic data & relatively uneventful FOMC meeting today, the bigger ‘theme’ of the week has been a continued rotation away from Value toward Growth (Mag-7) which has led to the outperformance of the Q’s on the week, currently higher by 169bps & also having made a new ATH today, whereas the hot YTD start to Small-caps along with Cyclicals has finally taken a bit of a breather with IWM currently sitting lower on the week by 57bps.
For those who may have missed, we published our ‘2026 Outlook’ which has a plethora of coverage on a wide range of topics / themes as ‘26 kicks off after coming off a strong ‘25 & for those whom would like to go back & read the report, I included it just below:
YTD Performance of names covered within ‘26 Year Ahead:
And 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.
And just to be clear, NOTHING is changing with Substack. It’ll stay exactly what it’s always been since we originally launched in the Summer of ‘23: where I share the thinking, research, & select trades behind my personal PA, along with ongoing commentary across all markets.
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.’
To jump straight into it, it’s been a relatively quieter week despite the sporadic headline noise amongst the administration along with today’s uneventful FOMC meeting but the bigger takeaway more recently, as we briefly mentioned earlier, is the continued rotation away from Value to instead Growth (Mag-7) as Small-caps & Cyclicals are finally taking a breather after the big initial outperformance the first two-weeks into the year.
At peak, there was a near 6% spread between Value & Growth & over the course of this past week, it’s since narrowed to just 4%:
Essentially, we’re back to the underlying dynamic in which the majority of capital is drawn toward the Mag-7 / Tech whereas the S&P 493 & or remainder of the market sucks wind:
And with that being said, this underlying dynamic mentioned above can be partially seen below as despite both Spooz & the Q’s having made a new ATH today, just 50% of stocks remain above the 20D, which in the shorter-term, is a more neutral signal rather than the recent & prior overbought conditions we just came out of:
Although on a more broader timeframe, the % of stocks above the 50D currently sits at 60% which more so highlights a market still in neutral territory but is borderline working into overbought territory (Peak in last 5-years was December ‘23 near 85% following Powell’s initial signal that the Fed was ready to move toward a rate-cut cycle):
And the Fear-Greed index underscores the point above (Neutral to borderline Overbought) as we’ve now moved away from ‘Neutral’ territory to instead ‘Greed’ & it’s mostly been attributed to the recent rally amongst the Mag-7 as that’s been the main drag as of late:
Having said that & before we jump into the remainder of the recap, the counter-point to the above but per Goldman’s U.S. Equity Sentiment Indicator, it currently sits just barely within positive territory (0.1) & STILL remains far from stretched despite all of the indices essentially sitting at ATHs which emphasizes a market still filled with upside complacency:
