Hello All,
Hope you’re all enjoying the weekend & have been able to get some time away from the screens.
Jumping straight into it, this past week was yet again a volatile one, especially within factor land, but initially, to kick off the week, the indices saw quite the rally higher on renewed hopes of a resolution within the Middle East, along with Anthropic’s S1 having been much better than feared, which in turn, finally provided a bit of relief to momentum & growth. Although, into the latter half of the week, following a mixed & rather disappointing set of earnings, the gains within Tech and the majority of the indices, excluding Small Caps, were pared off.
That said, Small Caps still managed to close out the week higher by 130bps, whereas the Q’s, after having sat higher by 300bps, ended up closing out the week lower by just over 200bps.
- Economic Data for the Coming Week:
Looking ahead into the upcoming week, in regard to economic data, it’s quite a jam-packed week, as excluding data, we have Midterm elections along with QRA, but in terms of data specifically, we have some sporadic labor & economic datapoints throughout the week, with the most important datapoint being Friday’s jobs report, especially considering the prior report was softer than expected & was also accompanied by an uptick in unemployment.
- STD Channels on Indices for Perspective: Weekly TF
- SPY
- QQQ
- IWM
- DJIA
Since starting this Substack back in June of ‘23, between individual names / tactical trades / baskets, we have netted a 197.1% return whilst in the same period, the Q’s have returned 96.62% / Spooz has returned 82.27% / Dow has returned 61.76% & Small-caps have returned 60.52%, so nice outperformance against all the indices whilst having a 79.9% win rate, averaging a 27.20% return on realized gains / winners & a 14.95% loss on realized losses / losers.
Looking forward to the future & continued success through ‘26.
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.
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 week ahead, in taking a look at this past week, as we had highlighted earlier, following the better-than-feared Anthropic S1, we saw quite the rebound within Growth & Momentum factors, which in turn, ended up being short-lived following earnings out of Big Tech, as Value-oriented & or Lower-volatility groups once again went on to outperform, whereas Growth & Momentum turned out to be the worst-performing factors on the week.
And in regard to the specific factors and or ‘baskets’ we’ve built on Plutus, here are the best performers within the last week:
Whereas on the flip side, the worst performing baskets within the last week have been:
Moving along, despite the continued whippy volatility, the % of stocks above the 20D continued to climb higher, rising toward 52% this past week, as the pickup in upside participation has continued, bringing breadth essentially back within neutral territory & having entirely worked off the oversold conditions seen just a few weeks back.
That said, on a broader timeframe, the % of stocks above the 50D sits at just 41%, which is still slightly within oversold territory, although certainly not as extreme as a few weeks back & is now slowly beginning to encroach back into neutral territory, of course, assuming the recent pickup in breadth / upside participation actually sticks.
Nevertheless, the anomaly continues to be the Fear & Greed Index, which still sits firmly within ‘Fear’ territory, although it is nearly encroaching back into ‘Extreme Fear’ territory, which of course, is all occurring with the S&P off its highs by just over 320bps, which, granted, if just looking at the S&P, would seem a bit outrageous, but of course, there has been a significant under-the-hood ‘reset,’ so it does make sense that we’re still within ‘Fear’ territory.
Historical context of the Fear-Greed Index overlaid with the S&P:
