The Portfolio Armor Substack

Exits, 6/18/2026

Portfolio Armor — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 07:39:27 GMT

This Week’s Trade Exits

As soon as I exit a trade, I note that in the comments of the post where I first mentioned the trade; at the end of the week, I try to track them all in one post. Starting in July, 2024, I have also been tracking them in this spreadsheet. These are the trades I exited this week.

Stocks or Exchange Traded Products

None.

Options

Comments

Stocks or Exchange Traded Products

No exits this week, as I haven’t been doing our basic strategy, which involves buying stocks and ETFs, and have been focusing on options instead. Nevertheless, the performance of our system’s top names over the next six months continues to be strong, as you can see below.

Options

A Busy OpEx Week

This was a big OpEx week, so the exit list is longer than usual.

OpEx weeks are also when our losers tend to collect: our pre-set exit orders often get us out of winning trades before expiration, while the trades left for OpEx are often the ones that didn’t work cleanly.

As usual, we list our worst losses first — full transparency.

This week still finished strong: 22 of this week’s 37 options exits were profitable. The win column included several large exits. A few of the losing exits were also relatively small: 30% of max risk or less.

That’s what we want to see over time: losses that stay contained, premium-harvesting legs that keep reducing risk, and winners large enough to more than offset the trades that don’t work.

Where The Losses Came From

A number of this week’s losing exits came from older trades entered before we added our current RSI (Relative Strength Index) and Chartmill Setup Rating screens. Those screens help us avoid two bad entry points: names that are breaking down and names that are overextended.

Some of this week’s older losing trades were in themes that had strong logic but weaker timing. Nuclear is one example. The long-term case remains real, but the market has been more willing to pay for AI infrastructure where the revenue, capex, and capacity growth are visible now. Nuclear still has policy support and future demand, but the new operating capacity story remains mostly ahead of us.

Precious metals are another example. We had a Top Names trade with good fundamentals and technicals in a silver miner, but precious metals haven’t been the right theme this year.

How We’ve Improved The Structures

We’ve also improved the structures.

Some of this week’s older losses came from trades where the put legs expired much earlier than the long calls. Since then, we’ve generally used longer-dated put legs in more trades. That gives the thesis more time to play out, provides more financing for the long upside exposure, lowers the net cost of the trade, and lowers the break-even point.

CoreWeave was the clearest process mistake in this batch. After the short put was assigned, we sold the long put leg instead of exercising it to resolve the assigned short-put exposure. That turned a loss that should have been strictly limited into something larger.

That one is on us.

We track these exits publicly because the point is to improve the process, not just celebrate the wins.

When Winners Deserve More Room

RELL, LWLG, and AEHR all made the same point from the other side.

The original hybrid structures worked. They produced strong gains. But the short calls also limited the upside once the stocks moved sharply higher. We later added more bullish exposure to all three names with structures that gave them more room to run.

A stock can climb hundreds of percent and still be tradable at the higher level if the thesis has strengthened, revenues and estimates have grown large enough to justify it, and the stock still passes our technical screens.

We don’t anchor to the first price we traded.

If the thesis improves and the setup is still there, we will trade it again. That’s how we’ve been able to trade strong names repeatedly as they kept climbing.

Premium Harvesting Kept Working

Premium harvesting did a lot of work this week too.

Short calls and put spreads on OXY, FTI, EQNR, WWD, MRNA, PL, AMPX, and others came off profitably as time decay worked in our favor. That’s one of the main jobs of these structures: collect premium, reduce risk, and leave the bullish side alive where the thesis still looks attractive.

The large winners drive the headline returns, while the premium-harvesting legs keep improving the math along the way.

The Takeaway

Overall, this was a strong exit week.

Our winners outnumbered our losers. The biggest wins were much larger than the typical loss. The premium-harvesting legs did their job. And several of the largest losses came from older trades entered before process improvements we now use every day.

That’s the right direction.

Keep the upside large. Keep improving the filters. Keep the losses limited. And when a thesis keeps getting stronger, trade the current setup instead of anchoring to the first price we saw.

Top Names, 6/18/2026

Portfolio Armor — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 03:57:01 GMT

The Market Gets A Geopolitical Tailwind

Last week, markets were still looking through the smoke.

This week, some of that smoke cleared.

The biggest market story was the signed memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran.

Iran / Hormuz risk had been one of the cleanest paths to a nastier inflation shock: higher oil, higher gasoline, higher shipping risk, higher bond yields, lower risk appetite.

Instead, the market got the opposite impulse.

Oil sold off. The Strait of Hormuz risk premium came in. The geopolitical tail risk that had been hanging over energy and inflation expectations eased.

The New Fed Chair Starts Hawkish

The other big macro story was the first Fed meeting under Kevin Warsh.

The Fed held rates steady, but the message was not dovish. Warsh signaled a renewed focus on price stability, and the market initially treated that as a hawkish turn.

That reaction made sense.

A Fed that sounds more willing to tighten is usually not what growth stocks want to hear. Short-term yields pushed higher, and the first reaction in equities was negative.

But that reaction didn’t last.

The Iran MOU mattered more because it directly attacked one of the market’s biggest inflation concerns. A hawkish Fed is still a headwind. But falling oil and lower geopolitical risk gave investors a reason to look past it.

From Oil Shock To Relief Trade

That’s the shift.

A week ago, the market had to price the possibility of a broader energy shock. This week, it had to price the possibility that the shock was receding.

That changes the tape.

Energy disruption risk comes down. Inflation pressure eases at the margin. The Fed still matters, but it isn’t the only story. And when oil stops threatening to break higher, growth and infrastructure themes can start working again.

That’s what we saw in our own rankings this week.

The current Top Ten isn’t a list of generic defensives. It’s a list heavy on infrastructure, bottlenecks, and strategic capacity: AI-linked networking and optics, energy and fuel exposure, space, industrial capacity, and offshore infrastructure.

That’s a useful read on the market.

Investors are still paying for scarcity. They’re still paying for capacity. And they’re still paying for names tied to the physical buildout behind AI, defense, energy security, and reindustrialization.

Monster Performance From Our Top Names

As you’ll see below, the latest Top Names cohort to finish its 6-month run is a reminder of why we keep coming back to our system.

The 12/18/2025 Top Ten cohort averaged 144.82% over the next six months, versus 10.5% for SPY.

That’s an extraordinary result, helped by at least one huge winner, but it’s also the point of the system: finding names with the potential to overwhelm the index when the right theme catches fire.

Bullish, But Still Selective

We remain bullish, but selective.

This week’s market news improved the backdrop: geopolitical risk came down, oil eased, and risk appetite recovered despite a hawkish first message from the new Fed chair.

We continue to let our system surface the strongest names, then use our RSI and Setup rating filters to avoid the most overextended setups.

The market is giving us opportunities again.

Our job is to take them where the setup is there.

Our Basic Strategy

Our basic strategy is to buy equal dollar amounts of the Portfolio Armor web app’s top ten names, put trailing stops of ~20% on them, and replace them with names from the current week’s top ten when we get stopped out of a position—there are no options involved in this strategy.

Another Use For Our Top Names

We also use our top names in options trades, such as this one we exited this week:

4-leg combo on Lam Research (). Entered at a net debit of $0.84 on 4/2/2026; exited the put spread at a net debit of $0.20 on 4/13/2026 and exited the call spread at a net credit of $8.00 on 6/15/2026. Profit: 829% on premium outlay (return on max risk: 119%). Signal: Top Names.

A Top Names Performance Update

Before we get to this week’s top ten names, let’s look at the final, 6-month performance of our top ten names from December 18th of last year.

Over the next 6 months, our top ten names from December 18th, 2025 returned (an astonishing) +144.82%, versus +6.84% for the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (SPY 0.23%↑).

So far, we have 6-month returns for 156 weekly top names cohorts since we started this Substack at the end of December, 2022.

[Skipping ahead so this post doesn’t exceed email length—you can see the top names returns for every week here]

And as you can see above, our top names have averaged returns of 18.08% over the next six months, versus SPY’s average of 9.71%. You can see an interactive version of the table above here, where you can click on each date and see a chart showing each of the holdings that week.

This Week’s Top Names

Below are Portfolio Armor’s current top ten names as of Thursday’s close.

Trade Alert: AI Infrastructure, Compute, And Industrial Precision

Portfolio Armor — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 15:34:57 GMT

Why These Trades

Today’s first trade comes from Portfolio Armor’s Top Names.

Every day the market’s open, Portfolio Armor ranks thousands of securities by their estimated six-month potential returns, using price history and options-market sentiment. Since the end of 2022, our Top Ten names have averaged six-month returns of 17.26%, versus 9.71% for the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF ().

That’s where we start.

The Anthropic Angle

Today’s Top Names trade also has exposure to Anthropic.

For new readers, Anthropic is one of the two leading private AI labs in the world, alongside OpenAI. It makes Claude, one of the leading AI assistants, and it’s widely viewed as one of the most valuable private companies in the AI boom.

Most investors can’t buy Anthropic directly yet.

That’s why pre-IPO exposure matters. If Anthropic goes public in a huge IPO, and if that IPO trades the way SpaceX did, public companies with pre-IPO equity stakes in Anthropic could re-rate accordingly. That gives today’s Top Names trade a second angle: not just the stock’s core business, but potential Anthropic upside as well.

Market Watchers Names

The other three trades come from our Market Watchers X list.

That’s a curated list of savvy traders and investors we follow on X. The idea is simple: some people consistently surface interesting ideas before they become obvious. We track that flow, then combine it with our own ranking, technical, and options work.

So today’s Market Watchers trades aren’t just “charts that look good.” They’re names tied to themes we care about, surfaced by investors worth paying attention to, and filtered through setups we think can work.

Adding Torque

That’s where the options come in.

We’re not just buying shares and hoping for the best. We’re using options structures to add torque: turning a strong move in the stock into a potentially much larger percentage return on the trade, while keeping our maximum risk known from the start.

That’s the setup we want: strong themes, smart sourcing, and defined-risk options structures designed to magnify returns when we’re right.

Full details below, including our pre-set exit orders, so we can take profits automatically if these trades go our way.

Today’s Top Names Trade

Anthropic exposure / AI telecom infrastructure theme

The Biology Won

Portfolio Armor — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 21:58:14 GMT

The FDA Blinks

In early May on Zero Hedge, we shared Peter Mantas’s post on Huntington’s disease, uniQure (QURE)’s AMT-130, the FDA, and the patients waiting for the first real treatment for this devastating inherited neurodegenerative disorder.

The title was “The Biology Will Win.”

@peter_mantas on what the FDA has done to patients who deserve better. $QURE \n\n","username":"PortfolioArmor","name":"Portfolio Armor","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/3380168418/9eec1d27d9257001c673ec631152af4e_normal.png","date":"2026-05-04T15:20:35.000Z","photos":[],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":1,"retweet_count":4,"like_count":10,"impression_count":1788,"expanded_url":{"url":"https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2026-05-03/biology-will-win","title":"The Biology Will Win","description":"What the FDA has done to people who deserve better.","domain":"zerohedge.com","image":"https://pbs.substack.com/news_img/2051298136325500928/odJ_n91m?format=jpg&name=orig"},"video_url":null,"belowTheFold":false}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM">

Today, it did.

The short version: the FDA reversed course on uniQure’s drug. After previously taking a much harder line on AMT-130, uniQure’s one-time gene therapy for Huntington’s disease, the agency now says the company can submit a Biologics License Application for accelerated approval based on its existing three-year Phase I/II data.

That’s a big deal.

For Huntington’s patients and families, this is the first real regulatory opening toward a therapy designed to slow the underlying disease, not merely manage symptoms.

What Changed

When Peter wrote “The Biology Will Win,” the FDA’s position was an obstacle.

AMT-130 had data suggesting a meaningful slowing of disease progression. It had patient advocates. It had physicians and researchers who understood the stakes. But it also had a regulatory agency that, at least under the prior posture, seemed unwilling to accept the kind of evidence rare-disease patients actually have available.

Under the FDA’s previous leadership, the agency had pushed uniQure toward a prospective, randomized, double-blind, sham surgery-controlled trial. In plain English, that meant some Huntington’s disease patients would undergo a sham brain-surgery procedure, including superficial skull drilling, without receiving AMT-130 while their disease continued to progress.

That was the ethical problem at the center of this fight.

This isn’t a cold, abstract trial-design question. Huntington’s disease patients don’t have decades to wait. They don’t have a long list of disease-modifying alternatives. And they shouldn’t have been asked to undergo a sham neurosurgical procedure just to satisfy a regulatory preference for a cleaner control arm.

The question was whether the FDA would treat that as a reason to block a promising therapy, or as a reason to apply judgment.

Today’s news suggests judgment won.

The staff and posture at the FDA changed. The agency moved away from the earlier hard line and toward a more flexible path for AMT-130. uniQure now plans to submit its BLA in the third quarter of 2026, seeking accelerated approval for AMT-130 in Huntington’s disease.

That doesn’t mean approval is guaranteed. It does mean the door is open again.

For Huntington’s patients, that’s what matters most.

Why ClearPoint Neuro Moved Too

QURE wasn’t the only stock that ripped today.

ClearPoint Neuro () surged too, and for good reason.

AMT-130 isn’t a pill. It’s a gene therapy delivered directly into the brain. ClearPoint provides the navigation and delivery infrastructure used in procedures like this, including its MRI-guided navigation platform and SmartFlow cannula.

That makes CLPT a picks-and-shovels beneficiary of the AMT-130 story.

QURE owns the therapy. CLPT helps enable the delivery.

That’s why this wasn’t just a QURE move. The market understood that if AMT-130 moves closer to approval and eventual commercialization, ClearPoint can benefit too.

What Happened To The Stocks

When we published “The Biology Will Win,” both QURE and CLPT were already on our radar.

They weren’t random biotech lottery tickets. They were high-conviction names for us, which is why we had multiple trades on both.

Since that post, both stocks have climbed sharply.

Today’s move was the kind of move you wait for in asymmetric biotech trades: a regulatory inflection point that changes the market’s view of a company almost instantly.

QURE exploded higher after the FDA update.

CLPT followed because the same news improved the market’s perception of its role in neuro/gene-therapy delivery.

That’s the setup we were looking for.

Hope First, Profits Too

The most important thing here is that Huntington’s patients now have hope.

This is a brutal disease. It runs through families. It takes people apart physically, cognitively, and emotionally. It gives patients and their children a genetic clock they never asked for.

So yes, the human side comes first.

But it’s even better when the same development that gives patients hope also rewards investors who got in early.

We have multiple trades open on QURE and CLPT, entered between last fall and this month, that are now positioned to profit handsomely from today’s developments.

For example, in this trade alert from last December,

We opened this trade on QURE:

Today’s First Multibaggers Trade
(Regulatory Re-rate / Gene Therapy)
The stock is uniQure (QURE 11.37%↑), and our trade is a combo consisting of these four legs:
Buying the $30 strike call expiring on January 15th, 2027,
Selling the $27 strike call expiring on April 17th, 2026,
Selling the $19 strike put expiring on April 17th, 2026,
Buying the $17 strike put expiring on April 17th, 2026,
For a max net debit of $2. The max gain on 2 contracts is $1,294 (and is uncapped, if the short call expires OTM), the max loss is $1,000, and the break-even is with QURE at $17.64.

This trade filled at $1.60.

We entered that trade at a net debit of $1.60, and we now have an open order to sell one of the January $30 calls at $43. That potential move from $1.60 to $43 on the first tranche gives you a sense of the kind of torque a well-built options structure can add to a trade like this.

The Lesson

This is why we keep looking for asymmetric setups.

Most stocks don’t have this kind of embedded optionality. Most trades don’t have the possibility of a regulatory reversal that can reprice a company in a single morning.

But when we find names where the science, the market setup, and the options market can give us a way to define our downside while magnifying our upside exposure, we want to be there before the news hits.

That’s what happened here.

The biology won.

Patients got hope.

And our trades were positioned to benefit.

Trade Alert: A Million People On Mars

Portfolio Armor — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 15:45:29 GMT

A Bonus Plan From Another Planet

Since SpaceX () went public, the stock has been on a tear.

The IPO pop was big. The Monday follow-through was big too. But the most interesting part of the SpaceX story isn’t just the stock action. It’s the scale of what Elon Musk is trying to build.

In an X article published yesterday, Marc Andreessen and Michael McGuiness of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz highlighted the first milestone in Musk’s SpaceX bonus plan: a $7.5 trillion market cap for SpaceX and a self-sustaining city of 1 million people on Mars.

A million people on Mars.

That’s not a normal growth-stock target. It’s not even a normal space-company target. It points to how large the investable space economy could become if even part of that ambition starts to look plausible.

We’re Not Chasing That Rocket

We’re not chasing SpaceX shares themselves at this point.

The stock has already had a massive public-market debut. The float remains limited. Lockup expirations can change the supply/demand picture later.

SpaceX may keep working, but the easy version of the trade may have already happened.

Our approach is different.

Our Way Into The Theme

Every day the market is open, our system uses price history and options market sentiment to estimate potential returns over the next six months for thousands of securities with options traded on them in the U.S.

Since the end of 2022, the top ten names surfaced by Portfolio Armor have averaged six-month returns of 17.26%, versus 9.71% for the market-tracking SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (). After SpaceX has options traded on it for a while, our system will start ranking it too.

Rocket Lab USA () was the #2 name in our system on Monday night.

Rocket Lab isn’t “the next SpaceX.” That’s not the point. The point is that SpaceX’s ambition can expand the market’s view of the whole space economy: launch capacity, spacecraft, components, defense payloads, orbital infrastructure, and public alternatives in allied niches.

Rocket Lab fits that setup because it provides launch services, spacecraft, satellite components, and mission services. If the space economy grows from a niche market into a trillion-dollar infrastructure buildout, Rocket Lab doesn’t need to become SpaceX to benefit. It just needs more customers launching, building, and operating things in orbit.

We’ve traded Rocket Lab successfully before. We currently have two open trades on it, and both are well-positioned now. Today’s trade adds a third structure with a longer runway and a higher upside target.

Beyond Space

We’re not just throwing darts at whatever ripped yesterday.

We’re focusing on names in themes that are working now, then using options structures to try to turn strong stock moves into much larger percentage returns, while still defining our downside risk. Space is one of those themes. AI-linked infrastructure is another.

Today’s other two trades come from our Market Watchers → Chartmill workflow (we take names we like from investors we follow, and set alerts to notify us when they hit our technical “Goldilocks zone”) and extend that approach. One targets IP / media-technology infrastructure, where licensing and platform monetization remain relevant. The other targets AI / crypto data-center infrastructure, where compute demand and power-intensive digital infrastructure continue to attract capital.

Full details on all three trades below.

Today’s Top Names Trade

Space / defense launch infrastructure theme

The stock is Rocket Lab USA (), and our trade is a combo consisting of these four legs:

Trade Alert: Industrial Sensing, Optical Networking, and AI Connectivity

Portfolio Armor — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 14:09:42 GMT

Previous Winners, Fresh Setups

Two of today’s trades are in previous winners for us.

We’ve already seen the market reward both themes, and both names came back through our Chartmill alerts after passing our screens.

One is tied to AI optical networking and data-center connectivity, where demand is still being driven by the physical buildout of AI infrastructure. The other is tied to telecom and network infrastructure, another less obvious layer of the same broader connectivity story.

In both cases, we were able to structure trades that pay us to add bullish exposure.

A Cleaner Technical Setup

The third trade comes from a different angle.

This name showed up in our Chartmill alerts with a strong technical profile and a clean setup after last week’s momentum correction gave us better entry points across several names.

It’s a play on American reindustrialization, tied to industrial sensing and electrification, with a chart that looks stronger than a lot of the market right now.

So today’s mix is simple: two previous winners where we’re being paid to re-enter, and one fresh technical setup where the options let us define our risk while keeping meaningful upside.

Today’s First Market Watchers Trade

Industrial sensing / electrification theme

How Can You Be Bearish After That?

Portfolio Armor — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:09:53 GMT

New post over on Zero Hedge.

We’ve got three new trades teed up for later today, but it looks like I’ll have to reprice them after the open, given the animal spirits unleashed over the weekend.

From The Momentum Bloodbath To The SpaceX IPO

Portfolio Armor — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 08:56:30 GMT

Trading A Volatile Week

This week had everything.

A continuation of the prior Friday’s momentum correction. Another round of AI-bubble FUD. Tomahawk missile strikes on Iran. An Iranian drone taking out an American Apache attack helicopter. The helicopter pilots rescued with the help of a drone boat. The first serious signs that a U.S.–Iran peace deal may be close.

And then, to cap it off, the largest IPO in history: SpaceX.

So how do you trade a week like that?

You don’t freeze. You don’t chase. You narrow the aperture.

Still Bullish, More Selective

We started the week with that basic stance: still bullish, more selective.

The AI buildout thesis didn’t break because momentum names got hit. But the tape changed. When the tape changes, the filters have to change too.

So we tightened our screens and focused on names that still had strong technical profiles after the selloff. The goal was not to buy every dip. The goal was to use the correction to add defined-risk exposure where the theme, technicals, and option pricing still lined up.

That was the framework behind Monday’s alert:

Back Into Intel, And Back Into The AI Buildout

On Tuesday, we went back into Intel.

That wasn’t a generic “buy the dip” trade. Intel was our system’s #1-ranked name, and it had already worked for us earlier this year.

The broader point was that the AI trade is not just one stock, one chipmaker, or one narrow story. It runs through semiconductors, memory, servers, optics, networking, power, cooling, and data-center infrastructure.

That’s where we kept looking.

Rejecting The FUD, But Raising The Bar

By Wednesday, the FUD machine was running hot again.

Some of it was the usual “this is 1999” argument. Some of it was more specific: worries that the SpaceX IPO, Anthropic IPO, and eventually OpenAI IPO would suck liquidity out of the rest of the market. Some of it was AI-infrastructure-specific, including questions about co-packaged optics and power-roadmap timing.

We didn’t ignore it. We filtered it.

The distinction matters. A serious claim can change how selective we are without changing the entire thesis.

So we kept placing bullish trades, but only where the setups still passed.

From FUD To Filters

Thursday’s alert made the adjustment explicit.

In a calmer tape, a decent setup can be enough when the theme and pricing line up. In a violent momentum correction, we want stronger confirmation.

So we leaned harder on technical filters, looked for stronger evidence of buyers taking control, and continued using elevated option premium to define downside and finance upside.

That’s one of the advantages of using options in this kind of tape. Volatility is not just something to fear. If you structure trades correctly, it can help pay for your exposure.

Then Came SpaceX

Friday was supposed to be the day the space trade got its biggest validation yet.

SpaceX went public in the largest IPO ever. It was a historic deal and a defining moment for the public space economy.

But the market’s reaction in related speculative names was more complicated. A lot of space and space-adjacent stocks sold off instead of ripping higher. The IPO appeared to suck some air out of the very names that had run ahead of it.

That didn’t kill the theme. It did remind us that even great catalysts can become sell-the-news events in high-beta names.

So Friday’s trades were selective: memory, energy storage, and space, with defined risk and option structures designed for a tape that was still volatile.

Exits: Harvesting Premium, Not Forcing Trades

On the exit side, we didn’t have any stock or ETF exits this week.

Most of the options exits were short-call buybacks inside hybrid combos. Those are not always the flashiest exits, but they’re important. Buying back short calls after most of the premium has decayed removes the cap from the long-call side and leaves us with uncapped long-call exposure if the stocks keep working.

We also had one put spread assigned and exercised at max loss during the correction. That’s why we define the risk on those legs. Even when the tape gets violent, the downside is capped.

The Lesson Of The Week

This was not a week for autopilot.

The right posture was to stay bullish where the thesis was intact, tighten the screens where the tape demanded it, and use option structure to avoid turning volatility into open-ended risk.

That’s what we tried to do.

We added exposure when the correction gave us better prices. We harvested premium where time decay gave us exits. We avoided forcing exits in names where the clock was still on our side. And we kept our risk defined in a week that included a momentum bloodbath, missile strikes, a drone-boat rescue, peace-deal rumors, and the biggest IPO in history.

That’s the kind of week where process matters more than prediction.

Exits, 6/12/2026

Portfolio Armor — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 21:00:20 GMT

This Week’s Trade Exits

Stocks or Exchange Traded Products

None.

Options

Put spread on Photronics (). Entered at a net credit of $1.48 as part of a 4-leg hybrid combo on 5/4/2026; the put spread was assigned and exercised at a net debit of $5.00 on 6/11/2026. Loss: 100% of max risk (238% on premium collected). Signal: Market Watchers.
Short call on Helmerich & Payne (). Sold-to-open the June 18th, 2026 $42.50 call for $0.85 as part of a 4-leg hybrid combo on 4/14/2026; bought-to-close that call for $0.20 on 6/9/2026. Profit: 76% on premium collected. Signal: PA Top Names.
Short calls on AtaiBeckley (). Sold for $0.73 as part of a 4-leg hybrid combo on 4/20/2026; bought to close for $0.10 on 6/11/2026. Profit: 86% on premium collected. Signal: Multibaggers.
Short call on Solstice Advanced Materials (). Sold-to-open the June 18th, 2026 $95 call for $2.45 as part of a 4-leg hybrid combo on 4/28/2026; bought-to-close that call for $0.20 on 6/9/2026. Profit: 92% on premium collected. Signal: Market Watchers.
Short call on Zoom Video Communications (). Sold-to-open the June 18th, 2026 $110 call for $4.25 as part of a 4-leg hybrid combo on 2/9/2026; bought-to-close that call for $0.20 on 6/9/2026. Profit: 95% on premium collected. Signal: Anthropic Exposure.
Short call on Planet Labs PBC (). Sold-to-open for $4.57 as part of a 4-leg hybrid combo on 4/27/2026; bought-to-close for $0.20 on 6/12/2026. Profit: 96% on premium collected. Signal: Top Names.
Short call on nLIGHT (). Sold-to-open the June 18th, 2026 $95 call for $7.01 as part of a 4-leg hybrid combo on 3/20/2026; bought-to-close that call for $0.20 on 6/9/2026. Profit: 97% on premium collected. Signal: Market Watchers.

Comments

Stocks or Exchange Traded Products

Options

Premium Harvesting In A Volatile Tape

This was a lighter week for exits than entries.

Earlier in the week, the sharp momentum correction gave us a chance to add bullish exposure in defined-risk structures. After Thursday’s bounce, it looked like Friday might give us a couple of larger exits too, including on our Velo3D () trade, after VELO spiked 35% on Thursday.

Then today’s SpaceX ( ) IPO sucked the air out of a lot of more speculative names tied to the space theme.

VELO still finished the week up about 60%, and that trade doesn’t expire until September, so we didn’t lower our sights just to force an exit.

Closing Out Short Call Legs

Most of this week’s options exits were short-call buybacks. We bought back short calls in Helmerich & Payne, AtaiBeckley, Solstice Advanced Materials, Zoom, Planet Labs, and nLIGHT after collecting most of the original premium.

Buying back short calls for $0.20 or less removes the cap from the long-call side of those hybrids, leaving us with uncapped long-call exposure if the stocks keep working.

We also had one put spread assigned and exercised at max loss in Photronics. That’s why we define the put-side risk in these combos: even during a violent correction, the downside on that leg was capped.

On net, this was a week for staying aggressive without getting sloppy: adding exposure when the correction gave us better prices, harvesting premium where decay gave us the exit, and avoiding forcing call-side exits in names where the clock is still on our side.

Trade Alert: Memory, Energy Storage, And Space

Portfolio Armor — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 15:33:50 GMT

Trading The Bounce, Selectively

Yesterday’s bounce was strong enough to change the setup.

We had a sharp momentum correction, followed by a broad rebound ahead of the SpaceX IPO. Some names still look damaged. Others look like they may have shaken out weak hands and started to recover.

Today’s trades focus on the second group.

Previous Winners And Fresh Setups

One of today’s names is a previous winner for us. We’ve already seen the market reward the theme before.

Another is a name where we already have an open trade. Normally, that would make us more cautious about adding exposure. But after this week’s sharp pullback, and with the SpaceX IPO putting the broader space economy in front of public investors, a satellite-to-cellular company we’ve traded before looks worth another swing.

Two of today’s names also have reported short interest of roughly 18% or higher, adding potential fuel if the bounce continues.

The common setup here is simple: strong themes, recent pullbacks, Thursday rebounds, and option structures that give us attractive upside potential relative to our risk (in a couple of these, 2x or more potential upside relative to our maximum downside risk).

Full details below, including our pre-set exit orders, so we can cash out automatically if these trades go our way.

Today’s First Market Watchers Trade

AI memory / data-center bottlenecks theme

Top Names, 6/11/2026

Portfolio Armor — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 02:01:05 GMT

Looking Through The Smoke

The market had plenty to process this week: Iran, Hormuz, oil, CPI, the SpaceX IPO, and another sharp rotation inside the AI / momentum complex.

In our trade alert yesterday, we wrote about why we were rejecting the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty And Doubt) in the wake of the momentum correction since last Friday.

That still looks right.

The market is starting to separate fear from follow-through.

Iran’s Bark And Iran’s Bite

The Strait of Hormuz has been an issue for markets because oil, inflation, and risk appetite are all tied together.

But the most recent developments there have actually been bullish on the margin.

The U.S. has been gradually prying the Strait back open to oil traffic, while applying military and nonmilitary pressure on Iran. Iran, meanwhile, has continued to issue threats, but its recent responses have been less effective than its rhetoric suggested.

Iran threatened a major response to the latest round of U.S. strikes yesterday, but from the reporting we saw, the response appeared to be underwhelming.

Today brought the latest installment of what simplistic cynics characterize as “TACO” (“Trump Always Chickens Out”)—in this case, because after bombing Iran yesterday, Trump said he’d canceled today’s strikes in light of an imminent deal.

If recent history is any guide, a peace deal may not actually be imminent. But the direction of travel is better than the headlines looked a few days ago: more oil traffic, more pressure on Iran, weaker Iranian retaliation, and a possible diplomatic offramp.

SpaceX And The Public-Market Space Trade

The other major story is SpaceX.

SpaceX is expected to begin trading Friday after pricing what is set to be the largest IPO in history. Whether the stock trades well immediately or not, the IPO forces public investors to put a value on the space economy in a much more direct way.

We’ve been writing about that for a while now, including in last month’s post, “If You’re Not In Space Stocks, Everyone Can Hear You Scream”.

The point was that space was moving from a niche theme to a public-market theme. The SpaceX IPO accelerates that process. It puts launch, satellite networks, defense, manufacturing, and space infrastructure in front of a much larger pool of public-market capital.

That kind of repricing can spread quickly. We saw that today in space-related names in which we have options positions: Velo3D (VELO 34.32%↑), Spire Global (SPIR 21.80%↑), Satellogic (SATL 24.54%↑), and Firefly Aerospace (FLY 19.95%↑).

The chart above shows how quickly that repricing can spread when a private-market bellwether forces public investors to revisit the broader theme.

From Energy Back Toward AI Infrastructure

There has also been a notable shift in our own rankings.

Portfolio Armor’s Top Names pivoted toward energy in early April; this week, the list has been pivoting back toward AI-adjacent and infrastructure names.

That continued tonight.

Acting When The Setup Is There

This week’s momentum correction gave us another chance to add long exposure selectively.

That’s been timely so far. Intel () our #1 name and the subject of our Back Into Intel trade alert earlier this week, was up 9.27% today alone.

We remain bullish, but selective. And our system’s top names remain our top source of alpha.

Our Basic Strategy

Another Use For Our Top Names

We also use our top names in options trades, such as this one we exited last week:

4-leg combo on Western Digital (WDC 8.64%↑). Entered at a net debit of $0.97 on 3/27/2026; exited the May 1st, 2026 $245/$240 put spread at a net debit of $0.20 on 4/14/2026 and exited the September 18th, 2026 $340/$350 call spread at a net credit of $8.00 on 6/3/2026. Profit: 704% (return on max risk: 114%). Signal: PA Top Names.

A Top Names Performance Update

Before we get to this week’s top ten names, let’s look at the final, 6-month performance of our top ten names from December 11th of last year.

Over the next 6 months, our top ten names from December 11th, 2025 returned +12.21%, versus +6.84% for the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (SPY 0.23%↑).

So far, we have 6-month returns for 155 weekly top names cohorts since we started this Substack at the end of December, 2022.

[Skipping ahead so this post doesn’t exceed email length—you can see the top names returns for every week here]

And as you can see above, our top names have averaged returns of 17.26% over the next six months, versus SPY’s average of 9.71%. You can see an interactive version of the table above here, where you can click on each date and see a chart showing each of the holdings that week.

This Week’s Top Names

Below are Portfolio Armor’s current top ten names as of Thursday’s close.

Trade Alert: From FUD To Filters

Portfolio Armor — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 16:11:01 GMT

From FUD To Filters

In yesterday’s trade alert, we wrote about why we’re still bullish on the AI buildout despite the latest wave of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt hitting the market.

The short version: the AI infrastructure thesis is still intact, but the tape has changed.

That matters for how we screen new trades. A calmer tape gives us room to accept a decent technical setup when the theme and pricing line up. A sharp momentum correction requires more.

Tightening The Screens

So we’ve tightened our technical screens again.

One of the tools we use is ADX/DMI, a technical indicator that helps measure trend strength and directional pressure. In plain English, we’re looking for evidence that buyers are taking control, not just that selling pressure has temporarily eased.

On the charts we use, the green directional line represents buying or upward pressure, and the red line represents selling or downward pressure. In calmer markets, green above red can be enough when RSI and setup scores line up. In this tape, we want a wider gap.

For fresh high-beta entries now, we’re looking for stronger confirmation: the green line at least 8–10 points above the red line, preferably with the green line above roughly 25. When a setup is otherwise marginal, we want even stronger evidence of buying pressure before acting.

What We’re Looking For Now

We’re still looking for names tied to strong themes.

Today’s alert has exposure to:

AI / data-center / humanoid-robotics sensing,
AI networking infrastructure,
distributed power / data-center power / military power,
advanced materials / defense / semiconductor-adjacent small-cap upside.

Each setup passed the tighter screen we’re using in this momentum correction.

That’s the point of the adjustment. We’re still willing to put money to work, but the bar is higher now.

Using Volatility To Our Advantage

We’re also continuing to use volatility to our advantage.

When volatility rises, option premium often rises with it. That can give us a way to define our downside while keeping attractive upside exposure.

That’s especially useful in a market like this one, where fear can move prices quickly in both directions.

The trades below are designed for that environment: tighter technical confirmation, defined downside, and meaningful upside if the setups work.

Today’s First Market Watchers Trade

AI / data-center / humanoid-robotics sensing theme

Trade Alert: FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, And Doubt)

Portfolio Armor — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 14:08:45 GMT

FUD, Again

Markets have been hit with another wave of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt since Friday.

Some of it is the usual “AI bubble” talk. The comparison being pushed again is that this is 1999, and the recent weakness is the start of a Dot-Com-style collapse.

We addressed that argument directly a couple of weeks ago in “Still Comparing This To The Dot-Com Bubble?”.

The short version is that the earnings, cash flows, and valuations of the leading AI companies today don’t look much like the profitless dot-com names that defined the late 1990s.

The AI buildout is already showing up in real revenue across semiconductors, memory, servers, optics, networking, power, cooling, and data-center infrastructure.

Still Not 1999

The stronger analogy is not “the bubble is popping.”

It is that markets are starting to sort the winners from the pretenders.

Another version of the FUD says the coming IPOs of SpaceX, Anthropic, and later OpenAI will suck the air out of the rest of the market. That sounds plausible at first, but the Dot-Com analogy breaks down there too.

Some of the most iconic Internet IPOs of that era happened years before the market top: Netscape in 1995, Amazon in 1997, and eBay in 1998. As Eliant Capital noted on X, those listings didn’t mark the end of the bull market.

They were part of the process by which the market started separating durable companies from promotional stories.

IPOs Aren’t The Top

The IPO wave will matter.

It will test demand. It will reprice some private-market assumptions. It will give public investors a chance to compare AI leaders directly instead of valuing them through second- and third-derivative plays.

But treating those IPOs as an automatic liquidity vacuum assumes the conclusion.

If anything, the better historical lesson is that important IPOs can broaden a bull market before they eventually help discipline it.

The AI Roadmap Fight

Then there is the AI-infrastructure-specific FUD.

A summary of a SemiAnalysis report this week suggested that NVIDIA’s 800V DC architecture and co-packaged optics timelines may be pushed out, with 800V DC large-scale shipments slipping toward 2028 and broader CPO mass production delayed into 2028–2029. That hit a number of AI-infrastructure names.

It’s a serious claim, but it isn’t the only data point.

The Companies Say Otherwise

NVIDIA has publicly positioned co-packaged optics as central to its AI networking roadmap. Its Spectrum-X Photonics release said Quantum-X Photonics InfiniBand switches were expected later that year, with Spectrum-X Photonics Ethernet switches coming in 2026. NVIDIA’s own silicon photonics page says Spectrum-X Ethernet Photonics is available in the second half of 2026.

Lumentum has also pointed to optical timelines that don’t match the most bearish interpretation. A conference transcript summary described optical scale-up products shipping in the second half of 2027, with a larger ramp after that.

Coherent has been pointing in the same direction. Its OFC 2026 investor presentation highlights VCSEL arrays as ideal for NPO/CPO transceivers for scale-up, with ongoing hyperscaler engagements.

That doesn’t settle the debate. Roadmaps can shift. Yields can disappoint. Bridge technologies can last longer than expected.

But when one report causes a forced selloff in names where the companies themselves are still pointing to earlier AI-infrastructure and optical-networking timelines, it’s not a reason to panic. It’s a reason to compare the report against the primary-source evidence.

Incentives Matter

Markets aren’t populated by disinterested monks.

Plenty of institutions missed parts of the AI-infrastructure rally, and some of them would welcome better entry points. That doesn’t prove any specific bearish report is wrong, and it doesn’t require assuming bad faith. It just means we should separate the claim from the market reaction.

Temporary bridge technologies can matter for a while. Roadmaps can shift. But when the market treats any uncertainty as proof that the whole AI-infrastructure thesis is breaking, it creates exactly the kind of volatility we can sometimes use.

Hormuz: The Question Now

Finally, there is the Strait of Hormuz.

That risk is real. Iran has already disrupted the Strait. The question now is whether that disruption is starting to be lifted, and whether the worst-case version of the story is losing force.

Iran’s limited responses so far to the latest limited strikes by the U.S. and Israel suggest that, despite its bluster, it may be unable or unwilling to resume full hostilities.

There is also a theory that the U.S. may be quietly reopening the Strait of Hormuz, as laid out in this thread by Guy Laron. Recent Kuwaiti oil-export data suggest there may be some truth to that.

This morning’s CPI report fits the same pattern. The headline number was hot because energy was hot, and energy was hot in part because the Strait of Hormuz disruption helped push oil and gasoline prices higher. If that disruption is now being gradually lifted, it should put downward pressure on the energy component of future CPI reports. Markets don’t need perfect news to stabilize after a FUD-driven selloff. They just need the worst-case version to stop getting worse.

Back To Process

That’s the backdrop for today’s trades.

We’re not trying to call a bottom in every stock that sold off. We’re looking for names that pass our technical screens and have option chains where volatility gives us attractive defined-risk structures.

Today’s alert has exposure to four different themes:

AI hardware / memory and storage infrastructure,
semiconductor-capex / advanced-packaging equipment,
a special-situation biotech trading below its cash and financial investments,
resilient-positioning / GPS-alternative infrastructure.

All four names pass the relevant screens we use to avoid falling knives. For newer readers, RSI stands for Relative Strength Index, and our preferred range for fresh entries is generally 40–60. We also look at Chartmill Setup scores, technical scores, and directional-indicator behavior.

Those screens matter because they help us avoid simply buying weakness because a story sounds interesting.

The structures below use the same basic approach we used in yesterday’s alert: harvest elevated volatility where it’s available, define the downside, and keep meaningful upside exposure.

Today’s First Market Watchers Trade

AI hardware / memory & storage infrastructure theme

Trade Alert: Back Into Intel

Portfolio Armor — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 14:24:55 GMT

Back Into Intel

We’re doing something a little different with today’s Top Names trade.

The stock is Intel (), which has already been a 2x winner for us. Earlier this year, we wrote that it was time to get back into Intel.

That call proved well-timed: the stock subsequently rallied, and we exited for a decent profit a few months later.

4-leg hybrid combo on Intel (INTC 1.30%↑). Entered at a net debit of $1.10 on 2/18/2026; exited the put spread at a net debit of $0.20 on 4/10/2026; exited the calendar at a net credit of $4.05 on 5/7/2026. Profit: 250% (return on max risk: 44%). Signal: PA Top Names.

Intel was Portfolio Armor’s #1 name last night, with one of the highest potential-return estimates we’ve seen from the system lately. That matters for the structure.

In our last Intel trade, we used a more conservative upside target when structuring it. It worked, but Intel’s move ended up being large enough that we left some gains on the table. This time, we’re adjusting the structure by using Portfolio Armor’s potential-return estimate, rather than the potential return implied by the options market, which we did last time.

That still gives us defined risk, but it gives the trade more room to benefit if Intel performs as strongly as our system thinks it can over the next several months.

Today’s Other Themes

The rest of today’s alert gives us exposure to several different AI-adjacent themes.

One trade is tied to AI data and model-training infrastructure. This is a name we owned successfully in the past through our basic stock strategy, and it now passes our Market Watchers / Chartmill workflow as an options candidate.

Another is in power semiconductors, where the setup gives us a way to participate in the broader AI power-management theme with defined risk that doesn’t impact us unless the stock falls meaningfully below its current price.

The final trade is a smaller optical-infrastructure name with a speculative but compelling Market Watchers thesis around co-packaged optics, AR optics, and possible large-customer validation. The story was on our radar earlier, but the stock did not pass our technical screens then. Now it does.

As always, we’re focusing on setups that combine a live investment theme with constructive technicals, defined risk, and option pricing at or better than fair value.

Full details on today’s trades are below, including our pre-set exit orders, so we will capture profits automatically if these workout.

Today’s Top Names Trade

AI foundry / semiconductor turnaround theme

Trade Alert: Still Bullish, More Selective

Portfolio Armor — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 15:06:16 GMT

Tightening The Screens

Friday’s market action was sharp, especially across AI-related and higher-beta momentum names.

That doesn’t change our view that the best AI-adjacent themes still have room to run. But it does mean we want to be more selective about where we add exposure.

So for today’s alert, we tightened the screens. We wanted names with Relative Strength scores closer to the center of our Goldilocks zone, Chartmill setup ratings of 6 or higher, and overall Chartmill technical ratings of 7 or higher. In today’s case, all three names had maximum overall technical ratings of 10 out of 10.

We also paid attention to the ADX / directional-movement readings. ADX measures the strength of a trend, while the directional-movement lines indicate whether buying pressure or selling pressure is dominant within that trend. In the three names below, those readings still showed bullish trend support after Friday’s shakeout.

That’s the profile we wanted here: names with enough trend strength, setup quality, and relative-strength discipline to justify adding exposure selectively after a sharp pullback.

Using Volatility For Cushion

The other adjustment is structural.

We’re using options expiring roughly six months from now, which gives these trades time to work and gives the current market stress a chance to move into the rearview mirror. We’re also using the spike in volatility to improve the financing side of the trades.

When option premiums rise, we can often sell puts further out-of-the-money and still collect enough premium to help fund the upside. That gives us more downside cushion than we would have had under calmer market conditions.

That’s the balance we’re looking for here: stay bullish where the screens still support it, but demand better entry structures after a violent tape.

Today’s Themes

Today’s Top Names trade is an infrastructure and power-project execution name that ranked at the top of Portfolio Armor’s system and previously worked well for us last fall.

The second trade is a semiconductor infrastructure name tied to AI connectivity and data-center buildout. It pulled back hard Friday, but it still cleared our tightened screen, and the option structure gives us defined risk with favorable financing.

The third trade is a power semiconductor / silicon carbide name. This is the more speculative of the three, but it gives us a way to add exposure to a beaten-down part of the AI power architecture theme without relying on a naked long call.

The fourth trade is tied to AI data-center cooling. As AI workloads push power density higher, thermal infrastructure becomes part of the same buildout story as power, chips, and optical connectivity. This gives us another way to participate in AI infrastructure without simply adding another semiconductor trade. It also cleared our tightened technical screens, so we’re using the post-selloff volatility to structure the trade with defined risk and put financing well below the current stock price.

We remain selectively bullish. Friday’s stampede didn’t make us abandon the themes that have been working, but it did raise the bar for new entries.

These are the names and structures that cleared that higher bar.

Today’s Top Names Trade

Infrastructure / power-project execution theme

Surviving The Market Stampede

Portfolio Armor — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 21:27:57 GMT

Surviving The Market Stampede

As Zero Hedge reported, yesterday was a stampede.

The Nasdaq had its worst day and worst week since April 2025. The semiconductors got crushed. Momentum stocks, retail favorites, and crowded AI-capex winners were hit hard. Treasury yields spiked after a hotter-than-expected jobs report, the dollar ripped, gold and silver were hammered, and crypto sold off too. It was one of those days when fear dominated the tape.

It was a day to see whether your process could survive the stampede.

Adding Exposure Into The Shakeout

On Friday morning, we sent out a new trade alert: “AI Power, Physical AI, And FDA Optionality”.

The point was that we were still finding individual names where the themes, technical setups, and option structures lined up. In that alert, we added bullish options exposure to AI power, silicon photonics, physical AI / autonomous-flight software—that "microcap unicorn" you read about on Zero Hedge later, Merlin (MRLN -5.12%↓)—semiconductor equipment, and biotech optionality. We also added a new trade on uniQure (QURE -4.02%↓), which we had discussed in Thursday’s alert in connection with ClearPoint Neuro (CLPT -7.20%↓).

The trades were structured to use high implied volatility to our advantage. In most cases, we were buying upside calls while selling other options to help finance them, with defined downside via put spreads. That matters on days like yesterday. A red day can hurt, but it does not automatically force us out of positions when the trades have defined risk and enough time to work.

We weren’t trying to call the exact intraday low.

We were trying to add asymmetric exposure where the price was right.

Fading Fear, Again

The useful symmetry is that a few of Friday’s profitable exits came from another fear-heavy period.

Back on March 25th, we published a trade alert titled “Fading Fear”.

War-related headlines and market anxiety were elevated then too. Instead of walking away, we looked for bullish exposure with defined risk.

Two of Friday’s exits came from that March 25th alert.

Short call on Cameco (CCJ -6.98%↓). Sold-to-open at $5.00 as part of a 4-leg hybrid combo on 3/25/2026; bought-to-close at $0.20 on 6/5/2026. Profit: 96%. Signal: PA Top Names.
4-leg hybrid combo on iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY -5.24%↓). Entered at a net debit of $4.84 on 3/25/2026; exited the July 17th, 2026 $115/$110 put spread at a net debit of $0.20 on 5/8/2026 and exited the October 16th, 2026 $150 / July 17th, 2026 $155 call calendar at a net credit of $13.60 on 6/5/2026. Profit: 177% (return on max risk: 87%). Signal: PA Top Names.

That is exactly what we want these structures to do.

Use fear when it gives us favorable entries. Define the downside. Harvest premium when possible. Then let the bullish side work if the underlying stock or ETF moves our way.

Nine Exits, Nine Winners

This week’s exits were clean: 9 options exits, 9 winners.

Not every week looks like that. Losing exits tend to cluster around expiration days, because winning exits often hit our pre-set GTC orders earlier (you can see examples of those in May’s OpEx day Exits post).. But a week like this shows why the structure matters.

The goal is to avoid turning every red day into a forced liquidation.

Why Structure Matters

The point of these trades is to start with defined downside, use option premium where it is available, and give the bullish side enough time to work. That mattered today. Despite the shakeout, we were not forced out of any recent options trades, and we did not get assigned on any short puts.

Using Volatility To Our Advantage

Friday may not be the end of the volatility.

But volatility cuts both ways.

It can create losses for traders who are overleveraged or structurally exposed. It can also create entry points for traders using defined-risk structures and waiting for the right setup.

Friday gave us both sides of that equation. We took the opportunity to add bullish exposure in selected names, including QURE. And we harvested gains from trades we entered during a previous market stampede in late March.

That’s the process.

Not ignoring fear.

Using it.

Tightening Our Screens

Ahead of Monday’s session, we’re tightening our technical screens a bit, to further reduce the chances of catching falling knives next week. Our system’s #1 name as of Friday’s close passes those tightened screens, and is also a previous winner for us. We’ll see what else clears our higher hurdles for Monday.

Exits, 6/5/2026

Portfolio Armor — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 21:03:24 GMT

This Week’s Trade Exits

Stocks or Exchange Traded Products

None.

Options

Comments

Stocks or Exchange Traded Products

Options

Fear, Then And Now

This was another strong week on the options side: 9 exits, 9 winners (our losing options exits tend to collect on OpEx days, because our winners tend to trigger our pre-set exit orders before expiration; you can see examples of those in May's OpEx day Exits post).

That was especially encouraging given today’s market action. When fear dominates the tape, it is easy to focus only on the positions that are moving against you in the moment. But today also gave us a useful reminder of why we put these structures on in the first place.

Two of today’s exits came from our March 25th trade alert, “Fading Fear.”

That was a moment when war-related headlines and market anxiety were elevated, but we were looking for opportunities to add bullish exposure with defined risk, which we did in part by placing trades on Cameco () and iShares MSCI South Korea ETF ().

Today, in another fear-heavy tape, we closed the remaining EWY calendar for a full 4-leg hybrid combo gain of 177%, and bought back the short call in Cameco for a 96% gain on premium collected. Earlier this week, we also exited the Cameco put spread from that same combo for an 86% gain.

That is the kind of symmetry we want: use fear when it gives us favorable entries, then let the structure do its job.

The Structures Did Their Job

That is not an accident. The recent combos have generally used limited-risk put spreads rather than naked puts, and expirations far enough out that one rough session does not automatically decide the trade.

Sometimes those put spreads or short calls expire worthless. Sometimes we buy them back for $0.20 or less. Either way, when those exits work, they reduce risk and can leave us with cleaner upside exposure.

Premium Harvesting And Big Call-Side Exits

Most of this week’s exits were premium-harvesting exits: put spreads and short calls bought back after most of the value had decayed.

That included put spread exits in NexGen Energy, Cameco, and Twist Bioscience, plus short-call exits in Capricor, Perma-Pipe, and Cameco. Those are not the flashiest exits, but they are important. They lock in income, reduce exposure, and improve the remaining structure.

The bigger headline numbers came from the full combo exits: Sphere Entertainment at 420%, Western Digital at 704%, and EWY at 177%.

Those are three different themes and three different trades, but the same general process: define the downside at entry, resolve the downside hedge when possible, and let the call side do the heavy lifting when the underlying stock or ETF moves our way.

Another Clean Week

This was a clean week: no stock exits, but a full slate of profitable options exits.

Weeks like this show why we keep using these structures. They let us stay aggressive where the upside is attractive, without turning every trade into an all-or-nothing bet.

That is the balance we are trying to strike: disciplined entries, defined risk, and enough upside exposure for the winners to matter.

Trade Alert: AI Power, Physical AI, And FDA Optionality

Portfolio Armor — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 14:07:14 GMT

Going Back To The Well

After a busy week of trade alerts, we’re still finding names where the themes, screens, and option structures line up.

A few of today’s trades are names we’ve traded recently. That’s intentional. If a stock has already worked for us, that is not a reason to avoid it when the theme is still live, the setup has refreshed, and the options market is offering an attractive structure.

That is especially true when we can add temporal diversification. In a couple of cases today, we already have exposure in the name, but the new trade goes further out or uses a different expiration profile.

QURE Back On The Board

We mentioned uniQure () in yesterday’s alert in connection with ClearPoint Neuro (), because the same rare-disease / FDA-optionality catalyst applies to both.

Yesterday, CLPT was the cleaner screen, so we added exposure there. Today, QURE itself is back on the board: the setup score has improved, the technical screen is acceptable, and the same AMT-130 / FDA flexibility thesis remains live.

We added a QURE trade last week too, but that one used an October short call. The new structure we’re using today has a shorter-dated July short call, so if the thesis works and the short call expires out-of-the-money or gets bought back cheaply, we could have uncapped upside for a longer stretch afterward.

Physical AI And Autonomy

We’re also adding a trade in a physical-AI name that moved sharply after hours on fresh autonomy news.

The broader theme is simple: AI is moving out of the data center and into the physical world. In this case, that means autonomous-flight software rather than chips, chatbots, or data-center power.

The stock traded much higher earlier this spring, sold off, and is now trying to rerate on a stronger version of the same thesis. Because the move happened after hours, we waited for Friday’s opening action and live Cboe IVs before finalizing the trade structure and entry price.

Today’s Themes

The rest of today’s alert stays close to the same broad areas that have been working for us: AI power, silicon photonics, semiconductor equipment, autonomous systems, and biotech optionality.

Several of these names have high implied volatility, but that can work in our favor when the structures are priced correctly. We’re using that volatility to finance bullish exposure, define our downside, and give the trades room to work.

As usual, we priced these structures using Cboe implied volatilities, Black-Scholes as a baseline, Bjerksund-Stensland as an American-style option check, and Cox-Ross-Rubinstein binomial tree modeling where path-sensitive issues could matter.

We’re letting price decide. If the market gives us our levels, we’ll take the trades. If not, we’ll move on.

Today’s Top Names Trade

Power generation / AI electricity demand theme

Top Names, 6/4/2026

Portfolio Armor — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 02:20:04 GMT

A Market Looking Through The Headlines

The market had plenty of reasons to sell off this week. It didn’t.

Some high-profile AI names pulled back after earnings, and the Nasdaq lagged as chip stocks sold off. But those pullbacks don’t refute the AI buildout thesis. In several cases, the issue was expectations: stocks that had already rerated aggressively needed more than “good” numbers to keep moving. Broadcom fell hard even though its AI chip revenue outlook remained enormous, and Ciena sold off despite strong revenue growth and higher guidance after a huge run.

That is normal in a strong thematic market. Stocks run, expectations rise, and even solid earnings can lead to a pullback. The broader infrastructure buildout still looks intact.

AI, Layoffs, And Productivity

The economic news was broadly market-friendly too. Weekly jobless claims rose to 225,000, but layoffs remain historically low, and Reuters still described the labor market as stable. Productivity was revised lower for the first quarter, but year-over-year productivity was still up 2.8%, and economists continue to expect AI adoption to support productivity over time.

The tech-layoff headlines reinforce the same point. When companies cite AI as a reason for restructuring, it means AI is already useful enough to reshape budgets, staffing, and workflows.

The same goes for complaints about token costs and usage bills. Heavy usage is evidence of real demand, and real demand eventually creates room for pricing power. That keeps us interested in the companies building the physical layer behind AI: power, networking, optics, data centers, energy, and industrial infrastructure.

Iran, Oil, And De-Escalation

The Iran headlines were ugly, especially the strike on Kuwait International Airport. Kuwait blamed Iran for the attack, while Iran denied responsibility and blamed a failed U.S. interceptor; the U.S. military said Iranian drones deliberately struck the facility. Kuwait also released footage showing what looks like an Iranian Shahed drone striking the airport.

Iran’s denial suggests Tehran may still be trying to calibrate pressure without forcing a full-scale restart of the war. If Iran wanted to widen the conflict, it would likely be claiming credit, not muddying responsibility.

Trump’s comments on Iran’s enriched uranium pointed in the same direction. He said it may not be necessary to retrieve it immediately because it is “entombed,” which reduces one potential source of near-term escalation. Oil also moderated as markets priced in hopes for progress on U.S.-Iran diplomacy and regional de-escalation.

Still Bullish, Still Selective

Our posture remains bullish, but selective.

We’re using Portfolio Armor’s Top Names as a starting point, then looking for names where the theme, the technical screens, and the trade structure all line up.

Lately, that has kept pointing us toward the same broad areas the market keeps rewarding: AI infrastructure, power, optics, defense-adjacent companies, energy, and the physical bottlenecks behind the digital buildout.

The headlines are still noisy. The themes are still intact. And the market is still giving us enough opportunities to keep scanning.

Our Basic Strategy

Another Use For Our Top Names

We also use our top names in options trades, such as this one we exited yesterday:

4-leg combo on Western Digital (). Entered at a net debit of $0.97 on 3/27/2026; exited the May 1st, 2026 $245/$240 put spread at a net debit of $0.20 on 4/14/2026 and exited the September 18th, 2026 $340/$350 call spread at a net credit of $8.00 on 6/3/2026. Profit: 704% (return on max risk: 114%). Signal: PA Top Names.

A Top Names Performance Update

Before we get to this week’s top ten names, let’s look at the final, 6-month performance of our top ten names from December 4th of last year.

Over the next 6 months, our top ten names from December 4th, 2025 returned +26.2%, versus +10.63% for the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (SPY 0.23%↑).

So far, we have 6-month returns for 154 weekly top names cohorts since we started this Substack at the end of December, 2022.

[Skipping ahead so this post doesn’t exceed email length—you can see the top names returns for every week here]

And as you can see above, our top names have averaged returns of 17.29% over the next six months, versus SPY’s average of 9.72%. You can see an interactive version of the table above here, where you can click on each date and see a chart showing each of the holdings that week.

This Week’s Top Names

Below are Portfolio Armor’s current top ten names as of Thursday’s close.

Trade Alert: AI Optics, Neurotech, And Infrastructure

Portfolio Armor — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 14:43:32 GMT

Taking Multiple Swings Again

One reason we’ve been using several trades in some alerts lately is that the market has been rewarding the right themes quickly.

That means that when a stock sits in a live theme, passes our screens, and gives us attractive options pricing, we want exposure to it ASAP.

When that name is a previous winner for us, we want that even more.

One of today’s trades is in a name that has already been a 2x winner for us this year. We also entered another trade on it last month. But it was Portfolio Armor’s #1 name last night, it remains tied to a strong theme, and it passed our technical screens again. So we’re adding another trade, going further out than our last one to give us additional exposure with some temporal diversity.

A Biotech Catalyst Worth Watching

We’re also adding a biotech special-situation trade today.

The stock is ClearPoint Neuro (), and the related catalyst is uniQure (). One of the biotech specialists on our Multibaggers X list has been pounding the table on both this week because he thinks the FDA may be moving back toward a more flexible posture on rare-disease and gene-therapy approvals, including the use of real-world evidence and existing scientific knowledge.

That matters because QURE’s AMT-130, a Huntington’s disease gene therapy, previously produced strong clinical data, but later ran into FDA pushback over whether its Phase I/II data and external-control comparison were enough to support approval without a new prospective sham-surgery-controlled study. uniQure said the FDA strongly recommended that kind of study in a March regulatory update. (uniqure BV)

That raises obvious ethical concerns. Huntington’s is a devastating, fatal disease, and a sham-surgery-controlled trial would mean some patients literally get holes drilled in their heads without receiving the actual gene therapy. That’s a much higher bar than asking patients to take a placebo pill.

CLPT matters here because its neurosurgical navigation and delivery platform has been involved in AMT-130 administration. ClearPoint previously described the U.S. AMT-130 Phase I/II study as using its ClearPoint Neuro Navigation System and SmartFlow MRI-safe cannulae under MRI guidance. (ClearPoint Neuro, Inc.)

So why are we adding a trade on CLPT today rather than QURE?

Because CLPT is the one that passes our technical screens now. We recently added a new QURE trade too, so we already have extra exposure there. Today’s CLPT trade gives us extra exposure to the delivery side of the same potential regulatory rerating while sticking with our process: live catalyst, strong theme, defined risk, and a stock that passes our screens.

Today’s Other Themes

The rest of today’s alert stays in the same broader lane we’ve been working: AI optical testing, positioning/navigation infrastructure, and AI data-center infrastructure.

As usual, we’re using options structures designed to use high implied volatility to our advantage, and we priced these structures using Black-Scholes as a baseline, Bjerksund-Stensland as an American-style option check, and Cox-Ross-Rubinstein binomial tree modeling where path-sensitive issues could matter. We’re aiming to enter at prices that are attractive relative to modeled fair value, and rather than chase these trades, we’re letting the market come to us.

Full details, including our pre-set exit orders, so we don’t have to babysit these trades, are below.

Today’s Top Names Trade

AI optical testing / network-validation theme