Special Situation Stock Investing | Two Picks

S&P 500 Trends & Interesting Stocks

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.com [https://thesimpleside.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_7] Thanks to [https://api.wellput.io/v1/cm?cmid=879460moxnqn5k&tid=340&s1=v2-r704841-p879460-c46016&s2=The%20Simple%20Side&s3=&s4=null]hear.com [https://api.wellput.io/v1/cm?cmid=879460moxnqn5k&tid=340&s1=v2-r704841-p879460-c46016&s2=The%20Simple%20Side&s3=&s4=null] for sponsoring this article [https://api.wellput.io/v1/cm?cmid=879460moxnqn5k&tid=340&s1=v2-r704841-p879460-c46016&s2=The%20Simple%20Side&s3=&s4=null]! [https://api.wellput.io/v1/cm?cmid=879460moxnqn5k&tid=340&s1=v2-r704841-p879460-c46016&s2=The%20Simple%20Side&s3=&s4=null] What a year this has been, and what an insane past few weeks… The market has been in an oil CRAZE, and it seems that despite the worry of the oil markets, despite the overvaluation of the markets, despite the insane debt levels of the US government, despite it all… the money printer that is the United States stock market has pushed forth to higher and higher levels. Year-to-date, the stock market has risen nearly 8% — a figure I honestly thought was near impossible. Since 1993, the SPY has averaged an 8.65% CAGR, with relatively few major drawbacks. The following graph represents the market’s CAGR as it changes throughout the years from 1993 to 2026. Make a note that nearly anytime we see a dip in the graph, the market is offering an incredible buying opportunity. It should come as no surprise that in recent years, CAGR has made massive jumps. Since 2023, the market CAGR has been 17.85%, and assuming positive returns through the end of 2026, we will be looking at the fourth consecutive year of gains. Since 1993, the market has seen more than 3 years of straight gains for more then 4 months in a row only 3 times. Once from 1995 - 1999 (5 years), another time from 2003 - 2007 (5 years), and now from 2023 - 2026 (4 years). I am sure I don’t need to remind you what happened in the years following those great market runs ending in 2000 and 2008. One thing I do think is important to mention, however, is the returns that we have been experiencing these past few years relative to the most similar bubble. Before the Dot Com bubble that occurred in 2000, the average returns were 26%, while the current average returns are 18%. Now, I am not saying that before any kind of market downturn, we need to average 26% returns, but I did just want to show that the market still does have room to run relative to what we have seen historically. One of the largest differences we have now, relative to the 2000’s crash, is real earnings growth. Companies are truly seeing earnings growth, and we know that earnings growth typically translates into growth in the S&P 500. We can also look at the two (earnings growth and SPY growth) on the same chart, and get a similar depiction. Again, here you can see that things track quite similarly along with one another. When there is an increase in earnings, the SPY tends to see an increase in the price of shares. I wanted to share all of this information for two reasons. * The market doesn’t go up and to the right for infinity. There has to be a reason for the market’s value to increase. * We are approaching levels of growth that have historically pointed to following declines. This week, I just wanted to look at some quick, super generalized trends we are seeing just with the S&P 500 relative to recent events and how substantially different they are from normal. I also wanted to note the fact that even though we are extremely far away from normal, we are also very far away from the insanity that we had in the 2000s. I know that the mainstream media makes it feel so deeply that the world is falling apart, but the reality is that we are still okay. Yes, the world is crazy, and the market is volatile, but overall, the market’s momentum is positive, and earnings keep proving the growth in the S&P isn’t nonsensical. Now I want to get into my portfolios and some potential research bets later this week. For now, I want to get into and share the current stocks we are invested in. We have had relatively solid performance on these picks to date (as is seen on our website https://thesimpleside.news/research [https://thesimpleside.news/research] for paid subscribers). I just wanted to share all of the current bets as well that exist outside of the portfolios.

Special Situation Stock Investing | Two Picks

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.com [https://thesimpleside.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_7] Thanks to [https://api.wellput.io/v1/cm?cmid=871123molhzq52&tid=321&s1=v2-r699316-p871123-c43109&s2=The%20Simple%20Side&s3=&s4=null]VantagePoint [https://api.wellput.io/v1/cm?cmid=871123molhzq52&tid=321&s1=v2-r699316-p871123-c43109&s2=The%20Simple%20Side&s3=&s4=null] for sponsoring this article [https://api.wellput.io/v1/cm?cmid=871123molhzq52&tid=321&s1=v2-r699316-p871123-c43109&s2=The%20Simple%20Side&s3=&s4=null]! [https://api.wellput.io/v1/cm?cmid=871123molhzq52&tid=321&s1=v2-r699316-p871123-c43109&s2=The%20Simple%20Side&s3=&s4=null] This is going to be one for the paying subscribers. Today, I am going to skip talking about the news, and instead, we are going to take a look at two investments I have made. We also have new stock picks for our monthly investments, and coming this week, we will be discussing some of the new stock picks from InsiderEdges.com [https://www.insideredges.com/]. There is a ton of value in today’s newsletter. I will try to send out some synopses on all of these investments over the next few weeks. It will help to have some more concentrated looks at each of these investments. One of the companies is a stock we already own, and I am going to be revisiting the valuation thesis (this is Stock 2). For stock two, I am expecting an initial jump in stock price to occur within the next 60-90 days, assuming no major changes in the thesis. The full stock returns will be realized over multiple quarters and will come after cash flows remain steady. The payoff timeline for stock 1 is not as exact as the other investment. We know that the deal we are investing in is expected to close in the latter half of 2026. So, I suppose this will be a 90 to 120-day payoff timeline. Here is a quick synopsis of the investments: Stock 1Returns: 33%Timeline: 90-120 days Stock 2Returns: 308%Timeline: >1 year** *Caveat that this investment should see an initial bump within the next 60-90 days based on my analysis (nothing is guaranteed). For those of you wondering what you are missing, I want to offer up an example. When the Strait of Hormuz started topping headlines all across the globe a few months ago, we decided that we needed to buy some portfolio insurance. We were sitting at nearly a 50% cash position, looking for potential investments to help offset losses we thought were coming, thanks to idle oil tankers. One of those stocks we decided to go long in was CVE (Cenovus Energy). We posted about the company on March 9, and cited two main reasons for the purchase. * Rising oil prices meant higher revenues and, therefore, higher stock prices. * A hedge against our current portfolios, which are heavily invested in higher-risk, AI-adjacent equities. Oil averaged a price of $69 a barrel in 2025, and at that value, CVE generated $38,239M in revenue. At the end of 2025, CVE was worth about $17.53 a share, and with 1,883M shares outstanding. We calculated the market cap at that time to be about $33,008M. Let’s call this a 1:1 valuation (even though the actual ratio is about .86). So, we can value CVE at 1:1 with its revenues. Now, let’s assume that all of their revenue was being generated by oil. That means they made $38,239M in revenue, divided by $69 per barrel, equals about 554M barrels of oil. Those same 554M barrels of oil, valued at $100 per barrel, would bring revenue up to $55,400M. Now, if we value CVE at 1:1 with its revenues, that means the market cap would be $55,400. Divided by the same number of shares outstanding: 1,883M, we end up with a per share value of $29.42. This is a projected 62% return for CVE in just 1 year. That model also assumes no growth and includes none of the “speculation money” that would flow into the stock over that timeline, either. Regardless, we adjusted this return for the potential for speculative capital, solved for the company already being undervalued, and ended up with a final potential annual return of 80%. We then figured that if oil was to stay at a value of $100 for just a quarter, we could see returns of 20% in just that time frame, and we made our bet on CVE at a value of 23.54. Just 21 short days later, we closed out the trade with a 20% profit on March 30 at a value of $27.44. *Please note that in this analysis, I made a ton of assumptions that are not necessarily true, but I wanted to show the general methodology that led me to make this stock pick. Without any further ado, let’s talk about our new investments!

Black Gold Runs The World (and the stock market)

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.com [https://thesimpleside.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_7] Enjoy this article thanks to Constant Contact! [https://api.wellput.io/v1/cm?cmid=777027mnaxiwlc&tid=312&s1=v2-r672609-p777027-c42106&s2=The%20Simple%20Side&s3=&s4=null] Reminders: Copy Trading Here [https://marketplace.joinautopilot.com/landing/2943]Portfolio Views Here [https://thesimpleside.news/portfolios]Macro Indicators Here [https://thesimpleside.news/macro-indicators]Research Reports Here [https://thesimpleside.news/research] Insider Trading & Hedge Fund Reporting: Found at InsiderEdges.com [https://www.insideredges.com/] Help Me Help You! One of the things I want to do more than anything else is ensure that you all are getting what you want from me. Please take a bit of time this weekend to let me know what you think can be improved upon in the newsletter by clicking the link below. There aren’t a million questions, nor am I collecting data, I just want to hear from you. If you want to get a quick overview of the current happenings in the oil market, I would go read last week’s newsletter (or listen to it). I would also strongly recommend that you go listen to anything from Doomberg. He is one of the top energy market analysts and is the person (group) that I turn to when the energy markets are having their moment. Doomberg was one of the first people to get me into my SMR investments. The most recent podcast I have seen from him is this one. Between those two articles, you should be able to catch up on the world of oil and the current state of the oil economy. If you have been following my recent oil bets over the past few weeks, then you know that we have made 3 main bets and they have returned 12%, 13%, and 10% just in the past week. You can find all of those picks I made in last week's newsletter, and I will include them in this week’s with some updates on performance. Let me quickly give my opinions on the upcoming market movements and the current state of the market. My opinions from last week remain. In 18 months, oil will be lower than it is today. If you wanted hard numbers, I would say that oil will be down below $90, and likely below $80 a barrel. With that being said, I think we are absolutely on the verge of an energy crisis; however, I do not think that the US is going to be affected as adversely as people think. Here is a quick quote on energy consumption in the US: The United States consumes approximately 20–20.5 million barrels of petroleum products per day as of 2023-2024, representing about 20% of global consumption.- https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=33&t=6 Here is a quick quote on the energy production in the US: U.S. crude oil production is at record levels, averaging approximately 13.4 to 13.6 million barrels per day (b/d) as of early 2026. The U.S. is the world's top producer, with total petroleum production (including natural gas liquids) exceeding 21 million b/d.- https://www.eia.gov/pressroom/releases/press577.php So, the key thing to note here is that we are seeing production and consumption in the US that are nearly equal. We do not have to export what we have; we are self-sufficient in the oil markets, and if we need to, we can turn off the export machine and keep our oil internal. This means that we will not see oil restrictions at the pump, but the prices could remain elevated for longer. One of the trades that I would love to scream about from the rooftops right now is buying natural gas. Oil and natural gas have a long-term correlation, and with natural gas so low right now, the argument could be made that going long natural gas would be beneficial. The one issue I have with that trade is the fact that when we drill for oil, we typically end up with natural gas as well. Modern techniques like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling can extract both from the same well, and operators are likely to focus on the higher-priced petroleum products in the short term. This actually puts negative pressure on the price of natural gas in the short term, bringing prices even lower. The natural gas trade is coming, but has yet to arrive fully in my eyes. If we see natural gas futures get pushed down below $2 (or even lower), then we could have some extremely large upside opportunities over the long run. For now, the best trades to make are long oil (like we have done) and neutral on nat gas. The rest of the market will continue to decline until we see the newest American war start to shut down. Again, we are about 50% invested in our portfolios, and 25% invested in these oil bets on the side, and we can take this additional 25% in cash and push further into these one-off oil bets if we see further upside (helping to offset the portfolio losses further). Quick Comments I am still 50% invested in my portfolios. These are the same ones you can copy trade on Autopilot (The Flagship, AI Second-Hand, and Tech Growth) portoflios. About 25% of my portfolio is uninvested and is returning 3.25-3.75% returns in HYSAs, treasuries, and other “cash equivalent” positions. The final 25% is currently invested across 3 main oil names and 1 additional crypto bet (with small allocations to others). Please note that these are available to paying subscribers. I will be sure to discuss these directly below for pro members. This year, the portfolios are struggling (no surprise here, as the whole market is); however, the other 50% is what is keeping our returns stabilized. My current investments are down about 10% YTD for all of the portfolios. In comparison to the -7% we are seeing in the SPY, I am not upset in the slightest about these returns. I still think we own some of the top-quality companies available to investors in the US! The 25% cash position is up something like 0.8%. The 25% we own in one-off bets is up about 10% on average. Portoflios (50%): -10% Cash (25%): +.8% One-off (25%): 10% Overall portoflio (100%): -2.5% YTD Overall, having a loss of 2.5% while the market struggles and sits at losses over 7%, I can’t be too sad. I think there are a lot of investors who are struggling much worse than I am right now. As an important note, I think we have some extreme upside in those one-off bets we have made, and we will see the portfolio turn green in the coming weeks as oil prices remain at their higher-than-normal levels. Between all of our oil bets, I can see a +30% upside possible (on average). **Final note: these are my personal opinions and investments and are in no way, shape, or form am I acting as a financial advisor for you or your portfolios. If you want to take a 100% position in the oil bets, if you want to take a 50% position or a 1% position, it does not matter to me. You do not, nor should you, copy my exact portfolios or positions. The “monthly picks” that I made have been faring the storm relatively well. They are down only .34% this month. We will be closing these trades on Tuesday, and we will then be opening April’s trades the following day (April 1st). We currently have 2 monthly stock picks in the works for next month. With all of that being said, I would love to hear from you all how you would like to see all of these different research articles and stock portfolios presented. I have thought about building a sort of heatmap for all of these, but I don’t know what would be best for you all. I like the website, but I think we can do better… As a further note, this is everything we offer to subscribers: * Portfolios * Flagship fund * AI Second Hand Effects * Tech Growth * Other * One-off Research * Macro Allocations * Monthly Stock Picks * Weekly Stock Picks * Hedge Fund Portfolio * Coming Soon in partnership with InsiderEdges Quick Updates (Current Bets)

Oil, Oil, Oil | Everyone Freak Out The World Is Ending (kidding, we are fine)

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.com [https://thesimpleside.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_7] Enjoy this article thanks to Groundfloor! [https://api.wellput.io/v1/cm?cmid=738976mmggi5ud&tid=333&s1=v2-r666506-p738976-c44486&s2=The%20Simple%20Side%20Daily&s3=&s4=null] (if you are looking for a solid place to keep your “cash” this is it — again sponsored but I love what they do). We have a few questions this week about our investments that I wanted to answer: Question about stop losses on weekly picks: Manual stop losses, we wait and see if things cross below 1% and then we kind of watch for a few mins. If the stock just immediately plumets then it is a sell right away, if not we hold for about 10 mins and then sell. Question on our portfolios: You can find all of the stock we invest in here: https://thesimpleside.news/ [https://thesimpleside.news/] — we have a portfolios page, a research page, and a weekly picks page as well. All of these have available data for you! Reach out to me directly at thesimplesidenews@gmail.com if you have further questions or use that button below. Reminders: Copy Trading Here [https://marketplace.joinautopilot.com/landing/2943]Portfolio Views Here [https://thesimpleside.news/portfolios]Macro Indicators Here [https://thesimpleside.news/macro-indicators]Research Reports Here [https://thesimpleside.news/research] Help Me Help You! One of the things I want to do more than anything else is ensure that you all are getting what you want from me. Please take a bit of time this weekend to let me know what you think can be improved upon in the newsletter by clicking the link below. There aren’t a million questions, nor am I collecting data, I just want to hear from you. Current Economic Views Oil, oil, oil. Really, that is the main and only thing driving the markets right now. If you are not up to speed on the oil happenings right now, I want to quickly update you. If you are up to speed, but you want a quick synopsis, this would be a great place to start. The current big issue is the Strait of Hormuz, which has been in a strict lockdown since the issues with Iran started. Currently, the strait has been deemed the “world’s most expensive parking lot” since nearly all ships (on either side) are held up and unable to pass through. The picture below is taken from marinetraffic.com and shows all of the ships stopped on either side of the strait. The average amount of oil that flows through the strait daily is about 20 million barrels of oil (and other crude products). This represents about 20% of the global consumption and nearly 25% of all seaborne oil (as reported by the BBC). The “war” has been going on for about 22 days now, which means about 440 million barrels of oil have been unable to move over that duration. In general, this seems like a drop in the bucket when you know that the total oil use annually is over 37 billion barrels; however, if you annualize the average daily amount of oil that passes through the strait, you end up with over 7.3 billion barrels cut from the world’s supply (this is about 20% as we noted earlier). This matters a ton for a few reasons, but the main one is the inelastic demand that the world has for oil — in other words, regardless of the price of oil, the demand remains relatively the same. This means, regardless of whether oil is $2.50 at the pump or $4.50 at the pump, the amount that people drive tends to remain about the same. This means that oil suppliers end up making tons more profits because they sell about the same amount of oil for much higher prices. The final important note is that when oil goes up, so does basically everything else. That is why when we look at the sector performance of all the S&P 500 industries, we see this over the past week: Now, the main issue causing oil to remain elevated for an extended period is Iran’s unwillingness to back down at the current moment. This is forcing Trump to remain involved and is almost entirely decreasing the “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out) ability. So, what exactly does this mean? Should we start going long oil? Should we start shorting oil? You will hear a ton of “self-proclaimed investment gurus” throwing opinions and commentary out there like they have been in the oil business for years… my recommendation? DO NOT LISTEN. I just recently saw a large publication on Substack tell their subscribers to short oil and go long gold… that is potentially the worst advice I have ever heard, and if anyone followed this advice, they are in a world of hurt right now. I do not have any direct recommendations like that, but I can tell you what we are currently doing. Since we have been sitting on nearly 50% cash positions, we have executed some trades (deploying about 20-30% of our cash) in some undervalued names, a few in the oil/energy space, and a few other undervalued names in other sectors. I love this positioning. When oil spikes, there is almost always a risk for a black swan event to occur (something out of the ordinary) that causes a drastic fall in prices, and I do not want to be caught with my pants down if that were to happen. I think the one-off bets we have in the oil space will help secure upside while other names in the portfolio fall. On the other hand, if a black swan event occurs and oil comes crashing down, the 50% positions we hold in our portfolios will negate the potential crashes in our oil bets. Currently, I think we are going to see the war remain at a standstill, and we will see $80+ oil through the end of the month at least. Iran really doesn’t have a reason to back down — yet — and I am sure they are aware of the previous TACO moves Trump has pulled with countries in the past. Again, I say, I like where we are. Current portfolio composition is the following: Portfolios: 50% Individual Bets: 25% (this is between 20-30% right now).Cash/Equivalents: 25% In this current setup, we have minimal exposure to high upside oil/gas investments and a medium exposure to lower-risk quality businesses in our portfolios. This is always the way we have wanted our barbell-centric portfolio to operate. Low-risk ideas on one side, high-risk bets on the other. It has served us well in the past and is serving us well now. One more key thing about oil: over the next 18 months, I can almost guarantee you that oil prices will be lower than they are right now. Yes, quote me on it. One Final Thought (*IMPORTANT*) The current price of oil is a black swan event. Something that only happens once in a blue moon, and there is always something big that happens after moments like this… Everyone starts to focus extremely hard on the cause of the black swan event and how to fix it. So, what does that mean for the current oil craze? When this event ends, everyone in the US is going to start talking about our reliance on external energy, and everyone will ask, “How can we reduce this reliance?” This is going to put alternative energy back into a bull cycle, and the additional tailwind of AI energy demand will bring energy stocks to unprecedented levels. This will not happen overnight! We will probably see a 2-3 year bullish investment cycle into alternative energy (specifically related to natural gas and uranium). We will likely also see huge investments into infrastructure (energy-related) in the US, as well. This bodes extremely well for our AI Second Hand Effects portfolio. [https://marketplace.joinautopilot.com/landing/2943/712633] All Current One-Off Bets We currently have about 25% of our available cash balance invested in some one-off investments. Those names are as follows:

The Saturday Sendout | A Review of All Current Research

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thesimpleside.substack.com [https://thesimpleside.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_7] Enjoy this article thanks to Cash App! [https://api.wellput.io/v1/cm?cmid=796964mmj6aqeo&tid=338&s1=v2-r657938-p796964-c45421&s2=The%20Simple%20Side%20Daily&s3=&s4=null] Reminders: Copy Trading Here [https://marketplace.joinautopilot.com/landing/2943]Portfolio Views Here [https://thesimpleside.news/portfolios]Macro Indicators Here [https://thesimpleside.news/macro-indicators]Research Reports Here [https://thesimpleside.news/research] Help Me Help You! One of the things I want to do more than anything else is ensure that you all are getting what you want from me. Please take a bit of time this weekend to let me know what you think can be improved upon in the newsletter by clicking the link below. There aren’t a million questions, nor am I collecting data, I just want to hear from you. Just A Few Side Bets… We recently came across some stocks we thought had outperforming potential and sent them out to subscribers. They also got posted here: TheSimpleSide.news [https://thesimpleside.news/research]. These trades are now up 1.53% on average. We also started a new service for paying subscribers, which offers deep value monthly stock picks. These can be found here: TheSimpleSide.news/monthly-picks [http://TheSimpleSide.news/monthly-picks]These trades are now down 1.11% on average. What I have for paying subscribers today is a quick look into two additional bets worth looking into. One in the AI-related realm and one in the oil-related realm. Before we get into all of those one-off bets, I want to quickly highlight what the macro quant tracker has been doing recently. Remember, this is a purely data-driven approach to the economy and the markets. As a note, we now offer all of the following to paying subscribers: 3 Copyable Portfolios on Autopilot-The Flagship Fund-AI Bets-Tech Growth+The Macro Portfolio+Monthly Stock Picks+Weekly Stock Picks+One-Off Research Reports That is an absolutely insane amount of value for the subscription price we offer, and I am happy to do it all! Macro Quant Views Before we get into anything, I want to show you the current portfolio performance from the Macro Quant Portfolio. If you do not know, this is a portfolio available to subscribers that makes a weekly allocation to either TLT, SPY, or GLD. We started this macro portfolio on Jan 1 of this year. Here is the YTD performance: What you will notice is that we have captured the GLD rally early in the year with a near 90% allocation to gold for almost all of 2026. In fact, I will share the image of what our rating of gold has been every day so far this year… as you can see, we have been in either buy or strong buy territory for nearly the entire year, and this has paid off handsomely. Interestingly, gold has entered into a period of “strong buy” again. Almost every time we have seen this in the past, we have seen GLD go on a run-up after. Of course, past performance isn’t a perfect indicator of future returns, but this seems bullish. Now, if we switch gears and look at the overall economy, we have reached the highest level of buying indication that I have ever seen since starting this program early this year. TLT, SPY, and GLD are all sitting in “buy” buckets right now (something available to our paid subscribers) on our website. This is the first time this has happened since about April of 2025, I believe. In general, what does this mean? Well, it means the market is likely overreacting to the situation in Iran, and the SPY could be entering into strong buy territory soon. On the other hand, we might see inflation remaining sticky and rate cuts less likely to happen. This is great news for gold, as there could be a further rotation from equities if that is the case, and this could turn into more GLD upside. In general, if you are invested in any of my portfolios, I would just remain calm at this point. I don’t think there is a reason for any sort of freak-out moment. The data seems to be supporting strong market dynamics, and the selloff on oil will not be a market-crashing event. Something I do want to highlight is that my cash holdings have decreased by around 20% due to the recent bets that I have made. That means we are sitting on 30% cash holdings, and even with that number, I feel extremely safe with the current market volatility. Research Bets If you are a free subscriber, you are getting blocked off a bit early today. I apologize, but a lot of these ideas, I think, are extremely high upside ideas, and that is what everyone who subscribes pays me the big bucks for! If you would like to join, you can do so by clicking the button below.