Top Names, 7/2/2026
A brief market comment, followed by a Top Names performance update, and this week's Top Ten Names.
Momentum Carnage
For index investors heading into Independence Day weekend, this was a nice week. The Dow gained about 2% and closed Thursday at another record. The S&P 500 rose about 1.8%. The Nasdaq gained about 2.1% despite giving back ground on Thursday.
The AI buildout has been one of our core themes though, so for us those names were a sea of red today.
AI Hardware Got Hammered
The Nasdaq fell Thursday as semiconductors, memory, storage, power, and AI-infrastructure names got hammered. The semiconductor index dropped more than 5% on the day, and number of AI-adjacent names where we have exposure were down more than 10%.
The Overcapacity Worry Returned
The catalyst was easy enough to spot. AI hardware had just finished a huge first-half run. Then reports that Meta (META 0.00%↑) may sell excess AI compute capacity gave investors a fresh reason to worry about overbuild and future chip demand.
That concern hit the obvious places: chips, memory, storage, power, cooling, and the broader AI-infrastructure stack. AI infrastructure has been one of our core themes this year, so we felt that move.
Getting Back Into Micron
We took advantage of today’s pullback to get back into Micron (MU 0.00%↑). You can read our rationale for that below, in case you missed it.
A Better Day For Biotech
Biotech has been another core theme for us, and it helped balance Thursday’s tape. A number of biotech names where we have positions were up solidly today, including Moderna (MRNA 0.00%↑), Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR 0.00%↑), and Sana Biotechnology ( SANA 0.00%↑ ).
Alignment After The Shakeout
In our trade alert earlier today, we wrote about how we’ve been leaning more toward names with stronger fundamentals in this tape. As it happens, our system’s top two names as of today’s close were two of the stocks in today’s alert. They weren’t top names last night, but their inclusion in tonight’s top ten is reassuring: it shows that our instincts are aligned with the logic of a system that’s nearly doubled the performance of the market since we started this Substack.
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 last month:
4-leg combo on Lam Research (LRCX -1.25%↓). 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 31st of last year.
Over the next 6 months, our top ten names from December 31st, 2025 returned +20.50%, versus +9.45% for the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (SPY 0.23%↑).
We have returns for 157 rolling 6-month returns since we started this Substack in December of 2022 here, but we should have 158—for some reason, the 12/31 top names cohort isn’t listed there yet. As of last week, our top names had returned +18.13% on average over the next six months, versus +9.69% for SPY.
This Week’s Top Names
Below are Portfolio Armor’s current top ten names as of Thursday’s close.
