August picks available now
The new Prime and Select picks for August are available starting now, based on a model run put through yesterday (August 3). As a note, I will be measuring the performance on these picks from the first trading day of the month, Monday, August 4, 2026 (at the mid-spread open price) through the last trading day of the month, Monday, August 31, 2026 (at the mid-spread closing price).
August picks available soon
I’ll be publishing the Prime and Select picks for the month of July before Monday, August 3 (the first trading day of the month). As always, SPC’s performance measurement for the month of July, as well as SPC’s cumulative performance, will assume the sale of the July picks at the closing price (at the mid-point of the closing bid and ask prices) on the last trading day of the month (Friday, July 31).
July picks available now
The new Prime and Select picks for July are available starting now, based on a model run put through yesterday (June 30). As a note, I will be measuring the performance on these picks from the first trading day of the month, Wednesday, July 1, 2026 (at the mid-spread open price) through the last trading day of the month, Friday, July 31, 2026 (at the mid-spread closing price).
July picks available soon
I’ll be publishing the Prime and Select picks for the month of July before Wednesday, July 1 (the first trading day of the month). As always, SPC’s performance measurement for the month of June, as well as SPC’s cumulative performance, will assume the sale of the June picks at the closing price (at the mid-point of the closing bid and ask prices) on the last trading day of the month (Tuesday, June 30).
June picks available now
The new Prime and Select picks for June are available starting now, based on a model run put through today (May 31). As a note, I will be measuring the performance on these picks from the first trading day of the month, Monday, June 1, 2026 (at the mid-spread open price) through the last trading day of the month, Tuesday, June 30, 2026 (at the mid-spread closing price).
June picks available soon
I’ll be publishing the Prime and Select picks for the month of June before Monday, June 1 (the first trading day of the month). As always, SPC’s performance measurement for the month of May, as well as SPC’s cumulative performance, will assume the sale of the May picks at the closing price (at the mid-point of the closing bid and ask prices) on the last trading day of the month (Friday, May 29).
May picks available now
The new Prime and Select picks for May are available starting now, based on a model run put through today (April 30). As a note, I will be measuring the performance on these picks from the first trading day of the month, Friday, May 1, 2026 (at the mid-spread open price) through the last trading day of the month, Friday, May 29, 2026 (at the mid-spread closing price).
May picks available soon
I’ll be publishing the Prime and Select picks for the month of April before Friday, May1 (the first trading day of the month). As always, SPC’s performance measurement for the month of April, as well as SPC’s cumulative performance, will assume the sale of the April picks at the closing price (at the mid-point of the closing bid and ask prices) on the last trading day of the month (Thursday, April 30).
What we’re reading (4/25)
“Department Of Justice Drops Criminal Probe Into Fed Chair Powell” (Semafor). “The Department of Justice has ended its criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, a move likely to thaw the frozen nomination process of President Donald Trump’s nominee to replace Powell, Kevin Warsh.”
“The Stock Market Is In La La Land” (American Enterprise Institute). “One has to suppose that if Keynes were alive today, it would come as no surprise to him that the US stock market today is priced at close to record levels, practically unchanged from where it was some eight weeks ago at the start of the US-Israel war with Iran. Nor would he be surprised that today’s stock market trades at a historically very high valuation, despite a geopolitical situation where all the clues are pointing to the likelihood of a severe economic fallout.”
“United’s Card-Counting CEO Made A Huge Bet—And It’s Paying Off” (Wall Street Journal). “Before he started in the airline industry, and long before he was the CEO of United Airlines, Scott Kirby was a serious gambler. He taught himself to count cards, raking in money on trips to Atlantic City and Las Vegas. To this day, he brags about getting kicked out of casinos all over the world. He’s still on the banned list in hotels up and down the Vegas Strip. A few years ago, he walked into the Bellagio during Super Bowl week and headed for the high-limit poker table. To set up a line of credit, Kirby handed over his ID. As he waited for his chips, a manager approached. The chief executive of one of the world’s largest airlines was told that he was welcome to spend his money on poker or any other casino game—but not blackjack. ‘It’s been at least 15 years since I’ve played,” Kirby said. “But I’m in the database.’ These days, Kirby doesn’t have to be in a casino to place a bet.”
“Meta To Cut 10% Of Staff As It Pours Billions Into AI” (CNN Business). “Meta said on Thursday it plans to lay off roughly 10% of its workforce, or about 8,000 people, the latest in a string of tech industry layoffs fueled in part by artificial intelligence.”
“Sam Altman’s Next High-Wire Act: Getting OpenAI To Make More Money” (New York Times). “OpenAI remains a leading A.I. lab that has raised more than $122 billion over the past year, is valued at $852 billion and has struck a series of deals with industry giants like Amazon and Nvidia. Its revenues have ballooned to an ‘annual run rate’ of $24 billion, which is an estimate of long-term revenue based on short-term data, and more than 900 million people regularly use its ChatGPT app. But others have caught up. Google has placed A.I.-powered features at the forefront of its widely used products. SpaceX, which aims to build A.I. data centers that ‘orbit the Earth,’ said this week that it was working with Cursor, an A.I. start-up, to improve its A.I. models.”
What we’re reading (4/23)
“Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq Futures Hold Steady After Israel And Lebanon Announce 3-Week Ceasefire Extension” (Yahoo! Finance). “Earlier in the session, markets had briefly pushed to fresh intraday highs before reversing course. The S&P 500 ended down while the Nasdaq Composite dropped its sharpest one-day decline in nearly a month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also closed lower.”
“Intel Shares Jump 20% As AI Agents Drive Big Growth” (Wall Street Journal). “Intel had largely sat out the AI revolution because it failed to develop a processor that could rival Nvidia’s signature graphics processing units, or GPUs, and because its advanced chip- fabrication business couldn’t keep pace with rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. But over the past year, as AI firms have deployed large language models and other tools that are operated by autonomous AI ‘agents,’ the humble CPU—a more basic kind of computer brain that Intel specializes in—has come back into vogue.”
“This Isn’t Trading. It’s Theft from Your Retirement.” (Adam Kinzinger). “In March, more than half a billion dollars flowed into crude oil futures in the fifteen minutes before Trump announced a de-escalation with Iran. On Polymarket — a prediction platform where Donald Trump Jr. is an investor and advisor — a small cluster of freshly-created accounts placed uncannily precise bets about whether the United States would reach a ceasefire with Iran and about whether Trump would strike Iranian energy infrastructure. Those accounts walked away with hundreds of thousands of dollars, in some cases closing their positions minutes before public announcements hit the wires. On a second major prediction-market platform, where a senior Trump family member also holds an advisory role, similar suspicious patterns emerged around the same events.”
“U.S. Soldier Involved In Maduro Raid Charged With Betting On The Operation” (NBC News). “Federal authorities arrested and charged a U.S. special forces soldier for allegedly making bets on the raid that removed Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro from office. Van Dyke ‘bet a total of approximately $33,034’ on the Maduro operation on the prediction market platform Polymarket, federal authorities said. He ultimately made more than $409,000 as a result of the bets placed on the U.S. operation, an unsealed indictment alleges.”
“A Moment Of Truth: Which Private-Credit Funds Believe Their Own Balance Sheets?” (Wall Street Journal). “Many publicly traded private-credit funds say their assets are worth more than the market is willing to pay. If they really believe that, they should be aggressively buying back their shares. First-quarter reports from the biggest publicly registered credit funds are due soon. For those listed on public exchanges, share buybacks will be a crucial metric for gauging management’s conviction in their own valuations.”
What we’re reading (4/21)
“Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq Futures Rise After Trump Extends US-Iran Ceasefire” (Yahoo! Finance). “US stock futures climbed Tuesday evening after Trump announced an extension of the current ceasefire with Iran, tempering fears of an imminent escalation in the region.”
“Tim Cook Built Apple Into A $4 Trillion Powerhouse. He Leaves Big Challenges On AI.” (Wall Street Journal). “Steve Jobs will forever be credited with inventing the iPhone. Tim Cook used it to build an empire. Cook, who built Apple into a colossus with influence coursing through geopolitics, pop culture and the daily lives of billions of people, said he would step down as chief executive on Sept. 1. He will remain as executive chairman.”
“Americans Are Stepping Up To Stop Our Corporate Goliaths” (Lina Khan, Doha Mekki). “Three decisions in three days last week showed us how Americans can keep corporate Goliaths in check, even when the federal government refuses to.”
“Can Allbirds’ Pivot From Shoes To AI Really Work?” (The Week). “The market’s reaction proves ‘AI excitement is alive and well — but as silly as ever,’ Noah Weidner said at The Street. The move might make sense, though. Artificial intelligence requires a ‘massive volume’ of computing power, and companies able to furnish it ‘will drum up excitement’ — even if that company once sold shoes.”
“The Stock Market’s Record Rally Now Faces These Two Big Risks” (MarketWatch). “Investors still seem fairly confident in the Fed’s existing setup, where its 12-person group responsible for setting interest rates has shown little appetite to lower them — outside of Stephen Miran, the Fed governor with the closest ties to the Trump White House.”
March performance update
Prime: +0.12%
Select: -2.60%
SPY ETF: -3.92%
Bogleheads Portfolio (80% VTI + 20% BND): -3.44%
What we’re reading (4/18)
“Private Credit Is Worrying Wall Street. Here’s How It Might Affect Everyone Else” (CNN Business). “[T]he question about private credit is often presented as one of extremes: either it’s an overhyped bout of anxiety, or a looming financial apocalypse. That can be a fun academic debate for finance nerds. For normal consumers, though, the outcome needn’t be apocalyptic to cause pain.”
“CEO Predicts ‘Next Golden Era’ For Content Amid Legacy Media Destruction” (Semafor). “Billionaire tech executive Matthew Prince predicted Friday that the “massive consolidating force” of AI that has disrupted legacy news outlets’ relationships with their readers will in the long run bring attention to the value of more granular and local journalism.”
“How Are Consumers Still Spending So Much?” (Ben Carlson). “The assets dwarf the liabilities and it’s not even close. Plus, the growth of those assets has far outpaced the growth in debt by roughly two-to-one in the past six-plus years. Although it always feels like the rich just keep getting richer, the bottom 90% has actually experienced larger relative gains in wealth in the 2020s[.]”
“America Is In The Middle Of A Stealth Manufacturing Boom” (Wall Street Journal). “Unlike jobs, though, actual factory output has risen briskly, and may even be picking up speed. This stealth recovery, though, isn’t because of tariffs. Instead, credit goes to the most basic economic force of all: demand. The U.S. is good at making things that happen to be in big demand right now. Therein lies a critical lesson in reindustrialization, which has become a bipartisan priority. Governments can help the process along. But that involves painstaking efforts across multiple fronts that, wherever possible, need to move with, not against, market forces. It doesn’t mean the indiscriminate application of brute tariff force.”
“A Stunning New Verdict Rewrites The Rules Of Corporate Morality” (New York Times). “For the first time in France, and possibly for the first time ever, anywhere, an entire corporation had been put on trial and found criminally liable for enabling terrorism.”
What we’re reading (4/15)
“Trump’s Fed Chair Pick Is Caught In An Unprecedented Standoff” (Wall Street Journal). “Kevin Warsh’s path to leading the Federal Reserve took a key step forward this week—and possibly two steps back. On the same day that the Senate Banking Committee announced the date of his confirmation hearing to become the next Fed chairman, prosecutors from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office sought to escalate the very investigation that threatens to delay his appointment.”
“What’s Driving The Wartime Stock Rebound” (New York Times). “Bullish sentiment is powering global markets on Tuesday, as stocks recover and oil prices fall amid hopes for renewed U.S.-Iran talks. That’s even as the U.S. blockades ship traffic into and out of Iranian ports, the threat of Iran-linked militants wreaking more havoc on maritime trade continues and big differences remain between Washington and Tehran over the shape of a deal.”
“Apple Could Win The AI Race Without Running” (Axios). “Apple isn't burning mountains of cash to buy GPUs for the sake of training AI models and processing prompts. Nor is it investing huge sums in frontier labs like OpenAI or Anthropic, as are rivals like Amazon and Microsoft. Why it matters: Apple may reap the rewards of everyone else's spend. Success from the sidelines. Apple's playbook: Keep selling high-end consumer hardware that will become even more essential as AI becomes more ubiquitous.”
“Tax Refunds Shoot Up As Americans Take Advantage Of New Deductions” (Washington Post). “The Internal Revenue Service is sending more money back: The average refund for the almost 100 million households who had already filed their returns as of April 3 was $3,462, more than 10 percent above last year’s average of $3,116 for similarly early filers.”
“Struggling Shoe Retailer Allbirds Makes Bizarre Pivot To AI, Adds $127 Million In Value” (CNBC). “Allbirds made a surprising announcement Wednesday that it is pivoting from shoes to artificial intelligence. The move boosted shares of the miniscule market cap company — it was valued at about $21 million at Tuesday’s close — by 582%. The shares, which were under $3 a day ago, jumped to about $17. The company announced that it’s pivoting its business to AI compute infrastructure in a release posted to its investor relations page.”
What we’re reading (4/14)
“S&P 500, Nasdaq, Dow Futures Hover Amid Renewed Hopes For US-Iran Talks” (Yahoo! Finance). “Momentum has been building: the S&P 500 has now posted gains in nine of the past 10 sessions and sits just shy of its late-January peak. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite extended its winning streak to 10 consecutive days. Recent advances have effectively wiped out losses from the Iran war in the year-to-date.”
“Nasdaq Logs Longest Winning Streak Since 2021 As Investors Look Beyond War” (Wall Street Journal). “The good vibes mark a stark reversal from the malaise that dragged shares lower after fighting began at the end of February. The prospect of a peace deal that reopens the Strait of Hormuz has now powered the Nasdaq composite to its longest streak of daily gains since November 2021—a 10-session ascent that has lifted the tech-heavy index 14%. The S&P 500 has erased its wartime losses and climbed 1.2% Tuesday to within 0.2% of its Jan. 27 record.”
“What A United-American Merger Would Mean, From Antitrust Hurdles To Airfare” (CNBC). “While the Trump administration has appeared more open to mega deals than its predecessors, such a merger would face heavy regulatory scrutiny with the top four airlines (those two carriers, plus Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines) already dominating about 80% of domestic capacity. If they combined, American and United would have a roughly 40% domestic share, according to airline data firm OAG. ‘This would be the biggest of all time. I can’t even see the slightest chance that a court would allow it,’ said George Hay, a law professor at Cornell University.”
“Social Media Just Isn't Very Social Anymore” (RealClear Markets). “Today, when the average user opens a social app, they are no longer stepping into a space shaped by relationships but into a stream of content shaped by prediction. The platform is not primarily asking who you care about, but what will keep you engaged the longest. That subtle shift has profound consequences, even if most users cannot immediately articulate why the experience feels different. According to a 2025 study from the Pew Research Center, nearly half of American teenagers now believe social media is harmful to people their age, a dramatic increase in a relatively short period of time. That perception reflects more than cultural mood. It points to a structural change in how these platforms function.”
“Wall Street Banks Break Records As Iran War Drives Trading Boom” (Financial Times). “Wall Street’s biggest banks smashed records with first-quarter earnings that capitalised on market volatility sparked by the outbreak of the Iran war. JPMorgan Chase reported the highest ever revenues from its trading business and net income for the bank that was second only to 2024, when it received a one-off windfall from the sale of its stake in Visa.”
What we’re reading (4/12)
“From Coffee To Home Prices, Costs Are Up Everywhere” (Yahoo! Finance). “Americans continue to reel from prices that soared during the pandemic, never came back to earth, and keep ticking higher. There’s no doubt that it costs more to feed yourself and cover basics like transportation, housing, and health insurance than it did just a few years ago.”
“AI Is Using So Much Energy That Computing Firepower Is Running Out” (Wall Street Journal). “The sharp capacity crunch has caused consternation among power users, forced companies to scuttle products and led to reliability problems. The issues are a warning sign for the AI boom, as they may limit the utility of powerful new AI tools just as massive amounts of users have begun to rely on them to boost productivity.”
“How Bond Market’s Private Credit Crisis Fears Are Playing Out In Fixed-Income ETFs” (CNBC). “Fears of a private credit crisis are rising as firms at the heart of the growing, but less liquid and less transparent, bond market face investor redemptions. That stress test has arrived just as private loans became more prevalent in the ETF market. It was a little over a year ago that the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first ETF branded as a private credit fund.”
“America’s New Tax Mantra: ‘The IRS Isn’t Going To Catch Me’” (Wall Street Journal). “Audits of people with at least $10 million in income dropped 9% last year, and they are on track to decline another 39% this year. Partnership audits declined, reversing an attempt to scrutinize private-equity firms and other complex entities that have long bedeviled the government. In fiscal 2025, the IRS collected less direct revenue from audits and appeals than in any year since at least 2012, though the money can arrive years after audits start. The IRS said Sunday that total enforcement revenue was up 12% through the first five months of fiscal 2026.”
“Helium Is Hard To Replace” (Construction Physics). “What I find interesting about helium is that in many cases, it’s very hard to substitute for. Helium has a unique set of properties — in particular, it has a lower melting point and boiling point than any other element — and technologies and processes that rely on those properties can’t easily switch to some other material.”
What we’re reading (4/2)
“The Wealthy Investors That Powered Private Credit Are Rushing For The Exits” (Wall Street Journal). “The rush of investors trying to pull their money from private-credit funds intensified this week, hitting unprecedented levels and raising the specter of prolonged pressure on the firms that had become the new kings of Wall Street.”
“Hedge Funds Bail From Global Stocks At Fastest Pace In 13 Years” (Bloomberg). “Fast-money investors are rushing to unwind their global equity exposure amid diminishing hopes for a swift resolution of the war in the Middle East. Hedge funds sold global stocks at the fastest pace in 13 years in March, according to data compiled by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s prime brokerage unit. The pace of selling was the second-largest since the bank started collecting the data in 2011.”
“America Should Beware Of Economic Hubris” (Mohamed El-Erian). “Even if the US economy continues outperforming its peers, it will not necessarily remain insulated from the Iran war’s adverse spillovers. Already, higher energy and borrowing costs are exacerbating the affordability pressures many Americans face, creating downside risks for jobs, consumption, and growth.”
“America’s White-Collar Bloodbath Deepens As AI Becomes Top Reason For Layoffs In March” (Daily Mail). “America’s layoff wave took a chilling new turn in March as artificial intelligence became the top reason companies gave for slashing jobs. US employers announced 60,620 job cuts in March, a sharp 25 percent jump on the month before, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. AI was linked to one in every four of those. The figures come as household-names including Oracle, Amazon, Dell and Meta axe workers while pouring money into AI, data centers and cost-cutting drives.”
“How A.I. Helped One Man (And His Brother) Build A $1.8 Billion Company” (New York Times). “Matthew Gallagher took just two months, $20,000 and more than a dozen artificial intelligence tools to get his start-up off the ground. From his house in Los Angeles, Mr. Gallagher, 41, used A.I. to write the code for the software that powers his company, produce the website copy, generate the images and videos for ads and handle customer service. He created A.I. systems to analyze his business’s performance. And he outsourced the other stuff he couldn’t do himself. His start-up, Medvi, a telehealth provider of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, got 300 customers in its first month. In its second month, it gained 1,000 more. In 2025, Medvi’s first full year in business, the company generated $401 million in sales.”
April picks available now
The new Prime and Select picks for April are available starting now, based on a model run put through today (March 31). As a note, I will be measuring the performance on these picks from the first trading day of the month, Wednesday, April 1, 2026 (at the mid-spread open price) through the last trading day of the month, Thursday, April 30, 2026 (at the mid-spread closing price).
April picks available soon
I’ll be publishing the Prime and Select picks for the month of April before Wednesday, April 1 (the first trading day of the month). As always, SPC’s performance measurement for the month of March, as well as SPC’s cumulative performance, will assume the sale of the March picks at the closing price (at the mid-point of the closing bid and ask prices) on the last trading day of the month (Tuesday, March 31).
What we’re reading (3/24)
“Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq Futures Jump As Wall Street Hopes For Iran Progress” (Yahoo! Finance). “US stock futures climbed Tuesday evening follow a report from the New York Times saying that the US has sent a 15-point plan to Iran aimed at ending the war…Meanwhile, oil prices sank, continuing a wild ride as investors assess Iran-related developments.”
“When Hyperglobalization Meets Chaos” (Paul Krugman). “[A]re we learning that the Persian Gulf is a uniquely crucial choke point for the world economy? I don’t think so. It’s certainly an important choke point. But it’s not unique…In a classic 2013 paper — updated in 2023 — Subramanian and Kessler noted that world trade had grown much faster than world GDP between the 1980s and the eve of the 2008 financial crisis. In the 80s world trade wasn’t much bigger as a share of world GDP than it had been before World War I; by 2008 it was on a whole other level. But as they documented, this rapid growth in world trade was not simply a matter of countries trading more, but of world production becoming much more complex and interdependent…Over the past 40 years or so we’ve built a world in which national economies are so interdependent that there are potential choke points everywhere you look.”
“OpenAI Scraps Sora Video Platform Months After Launch” (Wall Street Journal). “OpenAI is planning to pull the plug on its Sora video platform, a product it released to great fanfare last year that has since fallen from public view. The move is one of a number of steps OpenAI is taking to refocus on business and coding functions ahead of a potential initial public offering as soon as the fourth quarter of this year. CEO Sam Altman announced the changes to staff on Tuesday, writing that the company would wind down products that use its video models. In addition to the consumer app, OpenAI is also discontinuing a version of Sora for developers and won’t support video functionality inside ChatGPT, either. OpenAI is in the middle of a strategy shift to redirect the company’s computing resources and top talent toward so-called productivity tools that can be used by both enterprises and individual users.”
“Software Stocks Drop On Report Amazon Is Developing AI Tools” (Bloomberg). “Software stocks dropped on Tuesday after a report on new AI tools from Amazon.com Inc. rekindled the disruption fears that have roiled the sector in the past few months.”
“Private Equity Role In Soaring Child Care Prices Under Investigation” (Washington Post). “A Democratic senator launched an investigation Monday into the nation’s two largest for-profit child care providers, as rising child care prices squeeze voters already concerned about the cost of living.”