2nd Quarter Ratings
Saturday July 25, 2026
I do a BEST/BETTER/GOOD/AVOID list periodically when I expect to have free cash. I rarely rebalance the accounts. If I buy something I just continue to play it until it works out. Or doesn’t.
This means if a position goes to zero. It goes to zero. In the last decade or so we have held probably 500 different speculative positions and I can only remember three that went to zero. And two of those we still profited on in aggregate. If it moves I sell and then buy more stuff.
But, I think I am going to rebalance. The uncertainty right now is just too high. I was planning on pulling back before the election (after this earnings season actually) but I think I am also going to rebalance a bit.
Often there is nothing for me to do but wait. And I spend most of that time waiting over thinking.
I expect a few positions to move here shortly (hopefully up) and to have quite a lot of cash to deploy. So its time for me to plan what’s next.
This market is so manipulated and uncertain I am growing tired of being both a vol trader and an ETF manager. I consider trading options to dampen volatility frustratingly tedious.
But, there are plays that are less likely to ride the market than others.
Normally, I do evaluation process by hand. But, this time I fired up 400 of our local chat agent and run them over night.
And of course. After 15 hours it crashed. So I had to restart it.
It’s like asking a teenager to clean their room. You tend to find them asleep in the closet.
There are 1200 biotechs listed and tracked in our database. I filtered that list to 400 for review. I break biotechs out into very stages/phases/states. Once I do I think classify companies into plays. What I think is going to happen.
For example, if a company no longer has a viable drug it is EOL - end of life. Depending on the state the company is likely to follow one of a few paths. Liquidation, bankruptcy, in-license i.e. it will acquire a new drug and start over, reverse merger i.e. a private company will use the EOL company to enter the public market, or less frequently something else.
These Phoenix companies tend remain relatively stable until the event transpires regardless of markets.
Late-stage binary trial run-ups is another example play. But, there is a lot of volatility with this strategy, especially if you enter late, and ironically the run-up is highly predictative of upcoming trial failure so these have to be monitored.
For the purpose of this I just asked the agents to classify into EOL, binary, post Phase 1 winners, preclinical/early clinical for simplicity sake.
It’s important to understand BEST/BETTER/GOOD/AVOID is based on what my risk tolerance is. The highest returns I have ever achieved were companies I ranked GOOD. This is because the risk/reward paid out in a few of those cases.
So this is what the agents spit out. Here is a Phoenix (EOL) play.
Vs. an early stage play.
Over the last 5 days FULC is up 0.54%. PRLD is down 8.8%. Preclinical/Early clinical plays have the longest duration and are most prone to ride the market.
We own both of these stocks currently. PRLD we have held since 80 cents. FULC would be BEST in its classification. PRLD would be GOOD in its.
Ignoring market conditions of course.
Now the full sorting into BEST/BETTER/GOOD/AVOID requires another step. Which is going through the market participants to winnow out an toxic actors which if you are a day trader you might not want to do. Toxic actors tend to make stocks do fun things.
I am annoyed with dealing with my teenager (Agent) here so will stop for the day and resume tomorrow.
—AJ