Top Names, 6/4/2026
A brief market comment, followed by a Top Names performance update, and this week's Top Ten Names.
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
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 yesterday:
4-leg combo on Western Digital (WDC 0.00%↑). 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.
