Model Portfolio Update: 77.88% Return Since Inception, 52.9% Annualized Return

I am going to give away two free annual subscriptions to the Unemployed Value Degen Substack. The first to a random subscriber who restacks this article on Substack, and the second to a random subscriber who retweets this article on Twitter.

I am overdue for a model portfolio update. This is partially due to things moving so quickly, it’s hard to keep up with the major themes while market narratives are shifting rapidly. I like to think that subscribers have been well served with the macro updates in between. Even without an updated model portfolio, I have been highlighting in weekly videos which stocks I am currently buying.

From the last model portfolio posted in August, the performance is 77.88% since the date of the initial writeups. Some of those writeups were posted as early as 2024, and the latest was posted in August of 2025, just before the last model portfolio was released. The average number of days since the initial writeup is 495, which gives a 52.9% compound annualized return. That return would be if you bought those stocks at those weights the day of the writeup, which isn’t likely as I hadn’t posted a model portfolio. So these numbers are a little rough. I have been looking into model portfolio sharing platforms in order to keep this more up to date and accurate, but so far I haven’t found the right platform. Also, several stocks fell significantly after the initial writeups, and on my weekly videos I discussed whether I was averaging down, or if facts had changed and the thesis had soured. For example, I have bought significantly more Portillo’s since the initial writeup which was done at a stock price of over $12.

Model Portfolio posted on August 19th 2025:

I am making significant changes for 2026, on the very first weekend video of the year, I was attentive enough to recognize that Anthropic’s Claude had changed the narrative around software names. And on a macro writeup the next week, I identified that hyperscaler capex had been revised upward from $400 billion to $600 billion. Those narratives might be dominant for the rest of 2026.

What I haven’t written about yet is that the ISM PMI broke above 50 for the first time in three years, and the market is waking up to the idea that manufacturing is coming out of a three year recession. Industrials deserve special attention for 2026.

ISM PMI:

And the narrative that hasn’t broken yet is that the consumer is stronger than expected. While the market is currently dogpiling Consumer Staples names, I believe that this is out of fear of AI disruption and not due to fundamentals of Consumer Staples. I believe that before the end of this summer, attention will shift away from Consumer Staples and toward Consumer Discretionary.

From my pinned writeup in November, I had recommended roughly 1/3rd to AI beneficiaries, 1/3rd to inflation beneficiaries (although I wrote a subsequent piece why oil and gold is about more than just inflation), and 1/3rd to idiosyncratic situations and the silver tsunami. I am adjusting this to include more industrials, more consumer discretionary stocks, less real estate, and less small software.

Paying Subscribers can find my updated model portfolio below: