Last Updated on 13 May 2026

Investment Desk is a live record of how market ideas become portfolio decisions.

I use this page to track investment ideas, measure their performance, and analyze how they affect a portfolio. First, I form investment views based on information I come across. Then Souppe analyzes how those ideas behave inside a portfolio: how they interact as a group, respond to changing market regimes, and affect the portfolio’s structural quality.

The goal is to show how investment judgment and portfolio intelligence work together to bring better results.

What This Page Shows

Investment Desk follows the full path from idea to portfolio structure. It tracks how each idea performs, how it changes the portfolio, and whether the structure can be improved. This creates a live record of both judgment and process: not only what I think, but how those ideas behave when placed together inside a real portfolio.

This page has four main sections:

1. Portfolio performance: how the listed ideas have performed since entry.
2. Souppe analysis: the portfolio’s sensitivity to market regimes and its structural quality.
3. Souppe improvements: security suggestions that strengthen portfolio weaknesses.
4. Investment reasoning: the idiosyncratic opportunities, ETF ideas, evolving indicators and structural themes behind the portfolio.

Live Performance

This table tracks the current positions listed on this page. Returns are measured from each idea’s entry date and shown on a gross basis, before transaction costs, fees, and tax.

Ticker	Entry Date	Entry Price	Current Price	Return (%)	Std	CVaR	Exposure	Conviction	Status
INTC	22 Aug 2025	…	…	…	…	…	Long	High	Active
ITA	18 Sep 2025	…	…	…	…	…	Long	High	Active
PAVE	25 Sep 2025	…	…	…	…	…	Long	High	Active
HWAY	25 Sep 2025	…	…	…	…	…	Long	High	Active
SRVR	26 Sep 2025	…	…	…	…	…	Long	Low	Active
DTCR	26 Sep 2025	…	…	…	…	…	Long	Medium	Active
SPY	30 Sep 2025	…	…	…	…	…	Long	Medium	Active
AIPO	1 Oct 2025	…	…	…	…	…	Long	High	Active
ARGT	28 Oct 2025	…	…	…	…	…	Long	Medium	Active
REMX	25 Nov 2025	…	…	…	…	…	Long	High	Active
SETM	25 Nov 2025	…	…	…	…	…	Long	High	Active

The portfolio average return is calculated using an equal-weighted position index. Each position starts at 100 on its entry date and moves with its price. Closed positions remain fixed. The portfolio average return is the simple average of all position indices, expressed relative to 100.

These results are not presented as suggestions. They are a live record of how the ideas on this page have behaved since entry.

Current Opportunity Focus

Date

Opportunity

21 March 2026

On 21 March 2026, the portfolio was down about 10% from 28 February. Souppe’s return attribution showed that broad market pressure explained roughly 3.1 percentage points of the decline, while external forces were supportive, adding about 15.4 percentage points. The weakness was therefore not mainly systematic. It was concentrated in three positions: SETM, REMX, and ITA. Together, they accounted for a loss of roughly 22 percentage points. Since the broader external forces around them were supportive, the selloff appears concentrated, specific, and potentially excessive. My working interpretation is that investors may have sold these positions because of geopolitical pressure rather than deteriorating long-term fundamentals. If that pressure normalizes, the selloff may create an opportunity.

Souppe’s Portfolio Risk Analysis

Like the people who make them, markets have moods. Portfolio variance is influenced by both systematic forces, idiosyncratic events and human psychology.

A portfolio that looks balanced in normal markets may behave very differently during stress or recovery. Souppe analyzes this layer directly. Souppe’s risk model estimates the deeper forces affecting a portfolio and surfaces the findings through two views: expected exposure to three market regimes and eight structural quality dimensions.

First, we analyze the portfolio’s ex-post sensitivity to the three market regimes:

^{Portfolio regime beta exposures. Source: Souppe. In ( ): security weight in portfolio. In [ ]: the betas’ confidence score (1-100). In the portfolio line, the ( ) value is the beta standard error.}

Beta is the slope coefficient of a linear regression: for each 1% change in the explanatory variable, the target (our asset’s price) is expected to change by beta percent. The Regime Capture ratio (RCR) measures how much upside market sensitivity the asset captures per unit of downside market sensitivity- above 1.0 is favorable, below 1.0 means the asset amplifies losses more than it participates in gains.

A market regime beta measures how much the portfolio is expected to move for each 1% move in the broad market, conditional on the current market environment:

• Stress regimes are measured during significant drawdowns (2000–2003, 2008–2009, March 2020, 2022 etc.). We want a stress beta below 1.0, and we achieve this by adding elements to our portfolio that tend to dampen losses when markets crash. These securities need to be robust to dynamic correlations and various psychological biases that get emphasized in times of panic.
  
• Recovery regimes mean climbing back from a drawdown, with no new high yet. We want a recovery beta above 1.0, and we achieve this by adding elements that amplify gains on the rebound.
  
• Normal times- when markets are at or near all‑time highs. We want a normal beta at or above 1.0- participation in steady growth.
  

Our goal is to first identify our portfolio’s exposure to these regimes and then recognize its specific structural weaknesses, in order to know which actions can improve it. We improve our portfolio by tweaking its parts and their weights to form a group that is robust to various market conditions.

The current portfolio’s RCR is 0.95. This means the portfolio captures slightly less upside per unit of market movement than it gives back during stress. A 20% market drawdown maps to roughly a 21.8% portfolio decline, while a 20% recovery maps to roughly a 20.4% portfolio gain. The portfolio is close to symmetric, but it is not yet crisis-resistant.

When it comes to structural quality dimensions, Souppe‘s model quickly reveals any portfolio’s weaknesses:

^{Portfolio risk profile. Source: Souppe.}

Eleven equal‑weighted positions across five sectors (Information Technology, Real Estate, Industrials, Materials, plus the Multi‑Sector ETF wrapper).

Souppe’s diagnosis: the portfolio is structurally healthy, but its main weakness is downside exposure. Liquidity, beta stability, and tail coherence are strong. The weak point is that a few holdings contribute too much stress-regime risk.

The dimensions split cleanly into three tiers:

• Excellent- structural strengths to preserve:
  • Tail Coherence 100. Joint tail behavior across the book is well‑coordinated. No expected hidden cliff risk.
  • Beta Stability 95. Systematic exposures are consistent over time (mean instability 0.026). The regime betas above are reliable inputs to the planning.
  • Liquidity 91. Weighted volume percentile of 91- every position is exitable at scale.
    
• Well Diversified- solid baselines:
  • Sector Diversity 73. Five distinct GICS sectors, sector HHI 0.24. No single sector dominates.
    
• Moderate- functional but improvable:
  • Position Diversity 69. Position HHI 0.128, an effective N of ~8 against the 11 holdings. The equal‑weight scheme leaves room for a sharper risk‑aware tilt.
  • Diversification Ratio 57. DR = 1.49, meaning the portfolio’s volatility is ~33% below the weighted average of its constituents’ single‑name vols. Functional, well short of the 1.7–2.0 range a well‑hedged book reaches.
  • Systematic Coverage 59. Weighted R² of 0.59- about 41% of the portfolio’s variance is idiosyncratic, driven by the thematic ETFs (SRVR, DTCR, ARGT) carrying exposures that broad systematic drivers do not fully explain. Acceptable for theme‑led active management; we keep it visible.
    
• Concentrated– the structural weak spot:
  • Downside Exposure 46. A few positions contribute disproportionately to stress‑regime risk. This is what holds the composite at 71 and drives the 1.09 stress beta.
    

Souppe gives it an overall composite score of 71, which places it in the “Well Diversified” range. The main weakness is Downside Exposure, which we use Souppe to remedy.

Risk Metrics Notes

See notes on the risk metrics shown in the performance summary table:

• Standard deviation of returns (Std)- measures how widely returns move around their average. We calculate it using daily simple returns over the past 126 trading days and annualize the result. Higher Std means larger day-to-day price swings. Std is useful for measuring normal volatility, but it does not fully capture tail risk or asymmetry.

• Conditional Value at Risk 97.5% (CVaR, expected shortfall)- measures downside tail risk. We calculate it from daily simple returns starting on 1 January 2020 by taking the worst 2.5% of daily returns and averaging them. The result estimates the typical loss on the portfolio’s worst days. “n/a” means the security did not trade on 1 January 2020.

Improving the Portfolio with Souppe

We used Souppe to analyze the portfolio’s structural profile, identify its weak points and improve it step by step. Souppe analyzes how these investment decisions behave as a diversified group and helps reshape the portfolio around that structure.

Improving a portfolio comes down to two decisions: which securities to add, and how to weight the holdings.

Adding new positions must be grounded in wisdom. Smart investors diversify until they run out of smart ideas. Souppe supports this layer by identifying securities that can improve the portfolio’s regime sensitivity and build quality.

Weighting schemes encode investment philosophy. While equal weight treats every position as equally important, risk parity equalizes each position’s contribution to overall portfolio volatility, and Souppe-weighted gives more weight to securities that better support the portfolio’s regime-aware target profile.

Selection and weighting are coupled. The best next security depends on the current portfolio, its weights, and the investor’s structural objective. Souppe handles this coupling directly and shows how different construction methods affect the portfolio.

We ran the model for 4 iterations per weighting scheme, taking each scheme’s portfolio from 10 base positions to 15. At each iteration, Souppe evaluated the available universe and selected securities that strengthened the portfolio’s structural profile under the relevant weighting scheme. Because weights drive risk exposure, each scheme converges on a different security set- 10 portfolios in total, 10 shared base holdings plus 5 method‑specific picks.

The following table shows the constituent securities of each portfolio weighting scenario and their weights:

^{The 10 portfolio structures, as created by the Souppe model.}

The following radar plot shows the different structural quality dimensions of the 10 portfolios we simulated:

^{The risk profiles of 10 portfolios created using our base 11 securities + 4 recommended by Souppe.}

The structural quality dimension scores of the 10 portfolios:

What the Simulation Shows

The targeted improvement worked. The strongest downside improvements came from minimum variance, risk parity, HRP, and inverse volatility. The base portfolio started with a Downside Exposure score of 46, while minimum variance reached 76.

The composite score improved in 6 of 10 schemes. Equal weight and confidence weighted reached 76, Souppe weighted and win rate weighted reached 75, risk parity reached 74, and maximum diversification reached 73.

The improvement came through a clear structural path. Souppe reduced downside concentration and improved diversification by identifying securities that made the portfolio more balanced across regimes. The result is a cleaner portfolio structure, with less dependence on a small group of stress-sensitive positions.

The following table shows the 10 portfolios’ regime beta exposures:

^{Portfolio regime beta exposures. Source: Souppe. In ( )- beta estimation standard error.}

Each construction method reshapes the portfolio differently. Some schemes emphasize downside cushioning, while others emphasize balanced diversification and broader structural quality. This is exactly where Souppe shines: it does not force one generic answer, but shows how different construction choices reshape the portfolio’s behavior.

Several sub-scores moved in the right direction. Diversification Ratio improved in 9 of 10 schemes, and Sector Diversity improved in 7 of 10. The portfolio became less dependent on a small number of stress-sensitive positions and gained a broader structural base.

The Practical Decision

The simulation shows that portfolio improvement is not one-dimensional. Different weighting schemes express different priorities and result in different suggested securities.

Equal weight and confidence weighted methods produced the strongest balanced improvement, with higher composite scores, better position diversity, better sector diversity and a manageable liquidity cost.

Minimum variance weighting produced the strongest downside cushioning, lowering stress beta and materially improving Downside Exposure.

Souppe manages the quiet, foundational layer of portfolio management- market wide forces that investors often mistake for skill. It clearly shows the investor the various trade-offs embedded in investment decisions, so the final decision can match the investor’s objective.

Investors who want to understand the structure beneath their own portfolios can explore Souppe.

Souppe shows the architecture. The next layer is judgment: the ideas, themes and information signals that shaped the portfolio.

✦ ✦ ✦

Idiosyncratic Ideas

These ideas focus on companies and industries where I see a clear need for more investment and offer a favorable balance of potential return against risk. They are based on information I come across that points to opportunities worth pursuing.

Taking on idiosyncratic risk adds concrete wisdom to the system. Results may take time to appear but often materialize in the short to medium term.

Ticker	Date	Driver	Exposure
INTC (US)	22 Aug 2025	The US government will invest around $9 billion in Intel to strengthen the American semiconductor industry. We want the US government as a partner, as government support creates unique growth opportunities and diminished risk. It is a part of a larger process of reinforcing US production capacity and tech leadership, making this a solid turnaround bet.	Long
INTC (US)	18 Sep 2025	Nvidia announced that it will buy $5 billion worth of Intel shares, a sum equal to about 17% of Nvidia’s 2024 net income of about $30 billion. This move signals confidence from a key industry peer and strengthens Intel’s position within the AI supply chain. It reinforces Intel’s strategic importance and adds upside optionality with limited downside.	Long

Idiosyncratic investing is more suitable for individuals and fast-moving sophisticated investors such as hedge funds. These investors are mainly interested in exploiting short-term distortions in the aggregate investor’s perception. Institutional investors, on the other hand, employ patient capital. They are the ones quietly financing the economy, and are more focused on identifying the next sectors that need funding in order to meet future demand. This is where Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and their likes come in.

ETF Ideas

ETFs offer a bridge between the idiosyncrasy of individual assets, and the systematic exposure of sectors and industries. They make a balance between adding wisdom and logic into the system. Here are some investment ideas and their rationales:

Ticker	Date	Driver	Exposure
ITA (US)	18 Sep 2025	With rising global geopolitical tensions, governments are committing larger portions of their budgets to defense and security. Global military expenditure reached a record $2.7 trillion in 2024, up nearly 9.3% year over year, reflecting the rise of global geopolitical temperature. This sustained increase in spending supports the entire defense sector and stabilizes revenues across its key holdings.	Long
ITA (US)	25 Sep 2025	NATO’s new 5% defense spending goal formalizes military budgets as a structural, long-term component of member economies. It is more than double the previous goal of 2%. It is projected to lift the alliance’s annual defense budgets from $1.5 trillion in 2024 to about $4.2 trillion by 2035, a 60% increase in spending. This turns demand for defense into a predictable stream, supporting long-term sector growth.	Long
PAVE (US) | HWAY (US)	25 Sep 2025	The US President announced trillions of dollars in capital commitments for foreign direct investment into the US, which stood at $308 billion in 2024. This marks a significant projected annual increase. Part of this capital will flow into domestic infrastructure renewal, benefiting companies involved in construction, materials, and logistics. These ETFs provide diversified exposure to the development phase of infrastructure.	Long
SRVR (US) | DTCR (US)	26 Sep 2025	Data centers became an investable asset class in the 2010s as cloud and storage demand accelerated. Since 2022, generative AI has driven a new wave of investment in facilities that require far greater power and capital. These products provide access to the data-center infrastructure theme, ranging from real-estate owners and operators to the broader ecosystem of global infrastructure and service providers. Notice that data-center real-estate assets traded at implied cap rates of about 4.4% as at mid-2025, reflecting high valuations with a reasonable yield.	Long
SPY (US)	30 Sep 2025	The US publicly traded capital markets remain the world’s most reliable savings medium. As long as global economic growth continues and US credit risk stays low, capital inflows will persist, supporting long-term equity appreciation. The large scale adoption of AI is projected to increase productivity throughout the market. It is projected to contribute about 0.6-1.5 percentage points to annual productivity growth, providing an additional force of long-term support for the S&P 500.	Long
ISF (UK) | VUKE (UK)	30 Sep 2025	Rising political and social instability threatens the long-term attractiveness of the UK capital markets. Uncertainty around policy direction and investor confidence increases the risk premium and uncertainty around local equities.	Avoid
AIPO (US)	1 Oct 2025	The growing need for AI data centers is driving a parallel surge in energy and infrastructure demand. While data centers represent the visible frontend of this trend, the less visible backend- power generation, cooling, and transmission- requires substantial capital investment. As AI-focused facilities require 2–3× the power density and capital intensity of traditional ones, this ETF provides exposure to this infrastructure layer.	Long
ARGT (US)	28 Oct 2025	In 2023, Javier Milei won Argentina’s presidency, vowing to dismantle the failed economic system that had long forced the country to depend on international aid and debt financing. Many doubted whether the public would be willing to break from the false promises of the past and withstand the pain required for such systemic change. On 27 October 2025, Milei’s party won the midterm legislative elections with 40.8% of the vote, demonstrating broad and durable support for his agenda. As Argentine society endures this test, we gain greater confidence in the country’s path forward.	Long
REMX (US) | SETM (US)	25 Nov 2025	China dominates the rare-earth supply chain at both the extraction and processing stages, but its control is far more decisive in the chemical separation (processing) layer, where it holds nearly all global capacity. As demand for technologies that depend on rare-earth elements rises, particularly those requiring high-performance permanent magnets, this processing chokepoint becomes a strategic weakness for the Western bloc. The US and Australia are developing alternative processing hubs, but building a complete and scalable processing capacity takes years and requires multiple and complex technical stages to mature. Much of this capacity is likely to develop in countries with vast desert or tundra regions, where large-scale chemical processing faces fewer land-use and environmental constraints. Furthermore, new facilities remain exposed to Chinese price pressure, which undercuts competitors before they scale. ETFs with exposure to critical minerals, strategic materials, and industrial-policy beneficiaries may gain as Western governments and investors direct capital into rare-earth processing capacity.	Long

Systematic forces shape the backdrop, while idiosyncratic ideas identify where those forces clearly express themselves in specific assets.

The line between “passive” and “active” investing is drawn by the individual’s thinking effort. If you think on a regular basis and act upon your thinking, then you are an active investor. Otherwise, you are passive.

Evolving Indicators

These are short to mid-term indicators that capture emerging shifts in the economic environment, which offer an opportunity for ongoing research and refinement.

Indicator	Meaning
US avoiding bankruptcy	Since the Second World War, the US dollar’s reserve currency status has allowed the US government and private sector to borrow more easily and at lower cost than most others. Recently, debt levels have risen to troubling levels, and net interest is expected to account for about 14% of federal spending in 2026. Finally, the US government has begun to act, and its actions send important signals to investors. Some of the most interesting opportunities may come from gaining exposure to areas that strengthen the US economic and strategic position, such as renewed onshore manufacturing, leadership in AI and space, and defense investment. These areas are likely to attract policy support, capital and national attention. Private investors can reinforce that direction with their capital, and those who align themselves with it early may be rewarded accordingly. We should watch the direction of US government policy closely and position ourselves accordingly.
The AI trade	AI adoption is beginning to reshape sectoral performance by widening the gap between industries that can utilize smart automation, and those that rely on manual, repetitive data-related tasks. Capital is flowing toward sectors where AI directly enhances productivity, such as semiconductors, cloud and data infrastructure, finance, healthcare, logistics, advanced manufacturing, and energy systems supporting the demand for computing power. At the same time, industries built on routine cognitive or labor-intensive work, such as administrative services, customer support, basic accounting and legal tasks, traditional media, retail, and warehousing, are showing early signs of pressure and role displacement. Tracking this indicator helps identify where AI is creating new competitive advantages and where structural headwinds are forming across the economy.
An AI bubble	There is a feeling that the valuations of companies operating in the AI field, from model developers to infrastructure providers, are far too high relative to what their eventual value might justify. This feeling reflects a common human tendency to exaggerate early potential: to overestimate excitement and overlook the impact of competition. FOMO is the basic ingredient for bubbles. However, AI model development displays winner-take-all dynamics, where expensive models can become obsolete overnight if a rival advances, creating a risky environment for investors. This is because when a model becomes obsolete, its parameters become useless, forcing the developer to go back to the architecture drawing board. This may help explain why AI companies often invest in each other, as a way to stabilize their positions and spread risk in this quickly-developing landscape. The strong competition in the field of model development may prove dangerous if overlooked by investors.
Bipolar global geopolitics	The post-Cold War era of uncontested US leadership is giving way to a bipolar system, with the Eastern bloc of China, Russia and other countries increasingly willing to contest US dominance. This shift carries deep economic implications for the coming decade, as the US accelerates efforts to re-anchor manufacturing at home, protect its technological lead, and fund a military posture that now requires far greater investment. Over time, this environment tests the US dollar’s role as the world’s sole reserve currency. For investors, this evolving indicator may point to a gradual move away from frictionless globalization toward “bloc-based” globalization- clusters of countries organizing trade, standards, and capital flows around competing security and technology spheres.

Structural Themes

The following table records systematic investment ideas, built on the slower, longer-term forces shaping the societies and economies.

By taking on systematic risk, we add logic to the system.

Theme	Thesis
American Production Renewal	Even before the CHIPS and Science Act and Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the US government has been reinforcing domestic technology and manufacturing leadership. These large scale incentives exceed $1 trillion over 10 years. This policy direction favors industries that combine advanced production capabilities with innovation, supporting a long-term reindustrialization.
Water scarcity	Climate change and population growth are intensifying global water demand while diminishing supply, particularly across the Middle East and Africa. With global water demand projected to exceed supply by nearly 40% by 2030, scarcity is becoming permanent. Energy, utilities and water-technology firms will require increasing investments to create a steady supply of water.
High sovereign debt levels	Various governments borrowed heavily In the 2020 COVID emergency, and these high debt levels still persist to this day (See the US, UK and France). Most importantly, the US government debt to GDP stands at 124% (2024). With increasing deficits, the focus is quickly shifting to avoiding financial distress and the costs it brings, and even bankruptcy, at all costs. The US government is acting to achieve this through various means of keeping value within the country. This environment drives more aggressive diplomacy and deeper government involvement in the economy, harming globalization and fueling a “race to the bottom” between countries.
Aging US infrastructure	Much of the US infrastructure was built largely in the 20th century. Older facilities require higher maintenance costs and possible replacements. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates a $3.7 trillion funding gap through 2035 to modernize national infrastructure. Together with high national debt levels, this translates to higher value for private-sector capital providers, as well as construction companies.
Increased demand for energy	Humanity’s evolution from the Information Age to the Knowledge Age, driven by artificial intelligence, will require vast investments in infrastructure such as energy generation, transport, and data centers. Global electricity demand is projected to rise by 75% by 2050, underscoring the need for large-scale energy expansion across advanced and emerging economies.
AI reshaping societies	Artificial intelligence is restructuring value creation by automating routine cognitive work, and lifting productivity across the economy. As adoption rises, AI is set to generate trillions of dollars in incremental value output, driven by significant investment in computing capacity, data infrastructure, and automated workflows. These gains accrue primarily to societies capable of deploying AI at scale and controlling proprietary data. Labor-intensive industries will experience significant disruption. The result is a structural reorganization of society in which economic value increasingly depends on AI-driven systems. This theme is already taking place, as junior hiring in tech has mostly stopped, since these young employees’ work is easy to automate. The next stage is not a wave of layoffs, but a gradual shift: more experienced workers and managers will see parts of their workflow absorbed by AI systems, reducing the volume of human effort required even in higher-skilled roles. This will require major changes in how our societies distribute value.
Low birth rates	For roughly two decades, most developed societies have faced birth rates well below the 2.1 children per woman replacement level. As populations age and the share of working-age citizens shrinks, governments that want to preserve living standards face three broad paths: They can increase immigration, which may create social and political strain. They can try to raise birth rates, which so far has proved difficult in secular societies. Or they can invest heavily in robotics and automated processes, using capital and technology to raise productivity in a dwindling workforce. The more societies choose this third path, the stronger and more persistent the structural demand for automation, advanced manufacturing, and productivity-enhancing infrastructure.
The “Jewish Trade”	Throughout history, the safety, stability and well-being of Jewish communities have closely tracked the underlying health of societies. Rising antisemitism or social scapegoating often signals institutional stress, social fragmentation, and deteriorating rule of law, while episodes of Jewish exodus typically coincide with broader economic decline as human capital and financial networks weaken. Conversely, environments where Jews feel secure and integrated tend to reflect openness, innovation capacity, and resilient governance. Tracking these shifts provides an early indicator of long-term structural societal strength or fragility, which eventually surface in economic performance.

These notes evolve over time as logic and data develop. They are not recommendations, but personal observations and pieces of ongoing research.

Disclaimer: this page and website are for informational and educational purposes only and do not constitute investment advice, financial advice, or any other type of professional advice. The analysis presented is based on publicly available information. Readers must conduct their own independent research and due diligence before making any investment decisions. Past investment activity is not indicative of future performance. Consult with a qualified financial advisor before acting on any information presented here.