Top Names, 3/20/2025

A brief market note, then on to continuing our core strategy while updating our top names performance.

A Brief Market Note

A couple of weeks ago, I first shared this chart by Charlie Bilello, showing that the Nasdaq 100 Index had broken its 200-day moving average for the first time in early two years…

… And this table by Jason Goepfert, of previous times when the Nasdaq broke its 200-day moving average after long bull run. Over the next two weeks, if the index was down less than 3%, the bull market continued. But if it was down more than that, look out below.

Now, it’s been two weeks, and as surprising as it seems, given the drops in its largest components, the Nasdaq 100 is only down about 1.58% since.

Nevertheless, you might want to take advantage of the next market rally to hedge. You can download the Portfolio Armor optimal hedging app by aiming your iPhone camera at the QR code below (or by tapping here, if you're reading this on your phone). Our app can help you find the least expensive hedges given your risk tolerance and time frame.

Our Core Strategy

Our core strategy is to buy equal dollar amounts of the Portfolio Armor web app’s top ten names, put trailing stops of 15%-20% on them, and replace them with names from the current week’s top ten when we get stopped out of a position.

Another Use For Our Top Names

We also use our top ten names as a source of ideas for options trades, such as these on one of our top names from earlier this week:

1. Calls on FUTU Holdings (FUTU 3.08%↑). Bought for $2.15 on 3/17/2025; sold (half) for $6 on 3/18/2025. Profit: 179%.

2. Calls on Robinhood Markets (HOOD 6.70%↑). Bought for $1.32 on 3/13/2025; sold (half) for $4 on 3/17/2025. Profit: 203%.

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 September 19th, 2024.

Our top names from September 19th were up 2.14%, on average, over the next six months, versus down 0.37% for the SPDR S&P 500 Trust (SPY 0.00%↑).

So far, we have 6-month returns for 91 top names cohorts since we started this Substack at the end of December, 2022.

And as you can see above, our top names have averaged returns of 18.88% over the next six months, versus SPY’s average of 12.00%. 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.