Top Names, 4/2/2026
A brief market comment, followed by this week's Top Ten Names.
A Brief Market Comment
This week’s market action was dominated by the Iran war and the market’s shifting interpretation of how long it is likely to last. The week began with a relief rally on hopes that the conflict might be heading toward an endgame sooner rather than later, but that optimism faded after President Trump’s speech suggested another two or three weeks of bombing and offered no obvious diplomatic offramp. Stocks sold off, oil jumped, and the market was reminded again that this is still a headline-driven tape where sentiment can reverse violently in a matter of hours.
Even so, as we noted in this week’s Exits post, there were still reasons not to overread the bearish reaction. Trump reiterated that he expects the war to be wrapped up within weeks, not months, and he also went out of his way to note that the U.S. has not struck Iran’s oil infrastructure, despite calling it an easy target. Then on Thursday, even amid fresh escalation, Gulf countries kept pushing diplomatic avenues to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and there were reports that Iran and Oman were working on a protocol for future traffic through the strait. In other words, this still looks less like the start of a long occupation or regional ground war than a brutal but time-limited campaign with an eventual off-ramp.
That remains the basis of our positioning. Before this war started, we hedged against it. More recently, we have been selectively adding bullish exposure several months out, with the idea that by the time those options mature, we expect to be on the other side of this conflict. The best source for those trade ideas, as always, remains our Top Names.
Our Basic Strategy
Our basic strategy 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,
Call spread on Lumentum Holdings (LITE 16.54%↑). Bought for $2.10 as part of a 4-leg combo on 1/14/2026; exited the put spread at a net debit of $0.10 on 2/4/2026, and sold the call spread for $16.00 on 4/1/2026. Profit: 662% (return on max risk: 185%). Signal: PA Top Names.
No Performance Update This Week
Before we post our new Top Names, we usually post a performance update on our Top Names from six months earlier. There’s some inconsistency in the data today though, that I need to get cleaned up, so we’ll plan on getting back to our top names performance updates next week.
This Week’s Top Names
Below are Portfolio Armor’s current top ten names as of Thursday’s close.
