Week in Review: Jun 12 - Jun 20, 2026

Performance Snapshot

This week AlphaWizzard returned +1.2%, outperforming the S&P 500 (+0.7%) — a notable result considering we were operating with just 26% equity exposure while the broader market rode a peace-deal-driven surge. Year-to-date, we're up +28.9% compared to SPY's +9.5% and QQQ's +20.6%, a lead of more than 19 percentage points over the index. Critically, we've achieved this with a maximum drawdown of just -8.8% since inception, tighter than both SPY (-9.1%) and QQQ (-11.8%), demonstrating the risk discipline that sits at the core of this strategy.

The F1 Dashboard

AlphaWizzard enters the week ahead with the throttle firmly in Braking mode, maintaining 26% equity exposure — unchanged from where we started the week. In F1 terms, we're navigating a technically demanding section of the circuit: conditions look attractive on the surface (markets hit record highs on Monday), but the data under the hood — a hawkish Fed pivot, a still-elevated inflation environment, and geopolitical uncertainty that partially reversed mid-week — tells us this is not the moment to open up the throttle. Braking mode means the strategy is protecting capital above all else, keeping the bulk of the portfolio in cash while a carefully selected set of high-conviction equity positions do the work. This week, that approach paid off: our small but potent equity sleeve, led by memory and storage names, delivered strong absolute returns without exposing the portfolio to the full volatility of an uncertain week.

Market Radar

The week of June 15–19 was defined by a single headline: on Sunday June 15, President Trump announced a landmark deal to end the conflict with Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with a formal signing set for June 19 in Switzerland. The announcement detonated a powerful Monday rally — the S&P 500 surged +1.9% to record highs, Brent crude plunged nearly 5% to roughly $83/barrel, and the VIX fell 8.4% to 16.20. Technology led the charge (XLK +3.4%), followed by communications (XLC +2.4%) and consumer discretionary (XLY +1.9%), while energy (XLE) bore the brunt, falling 3.6%. It was, by any measure, one of the largest single-day market moves of 2026.

The market gave back part of those gains as uncertainty returned. By Tuesday, equities were little changed as investors grappled with the reality that a permanent truce remained under negotiation — Trump confirmed a preliminary agreement had been signed, but both sides acknowledged the hard work was still ahead. Then on Wednesday, Kevin Warsh's Federal Reserve delivered its first rate decision under his chairmanship, and it was unambiguously hawkish: rates held at 3.5%–3.75%, but the FOMC removed language signalling a bias toward future cuts, shortened the policy statement dramatically, and the median dot plot rose to 3.8% for year-end 2026 (from 3.4% in March). Nine of eighteen officials now anticipate at least one hike this year. Officials also revised their PCE inflation forecast sharply higher, to 3.6% at year-end versus 2.7% in March. Markets slid on the news — the S&P 500 fell 0.6% and the Nasdaq dropped 0.7% on Wednesday alone. The week thus told a nuanced story: a peace-deal tailwind colliding head-on with a hawkish central bank and sticky inflation backdrop.

On the economic data front, the Empire State Manufacturing Index for June came in at 5.7, a significant miss versus the 13.9 consensus and a sharp deceleration from May's 19.6 — hinting that regional factory activity is cooling. Industrial production rose just 0.1% in May, with capacity utilization at 76.2%. It was also an inter-season earnings lull, with Q2 reports not yet underway; FactSet's forecast of 28.4% S&P 500 Q1 earnings growth remains a strong fundamental backdrop, but with limited near-term catalysts from the earnings front this week, macro and geopolitics did the driving. Heading into next week, the key variable is whether the Iran deal hardens into a durable agreement or frays further — and whether the Fed's hawkish pivot continues to restrain risk appetite even as geopolitical risk premiums deflate.

Under the Hood

Top Contributors

Laggards

Sector Performance

Here's how the major sectors performed this week and how our stock picks in each sector compared to the sector ETFs:

*Our Return is the weighted average of portfolio holdings in each sector. Impact is each sector's NAV-weighted EOD impact in percentage points (pp). Σ Impact (+1.00pp) sits slightly below the headline NAV (+1.20pp); the 0.20pp difference reflects cash-sleeve carry, dividends in period, and intraday execution by the daily risk overlay (the model uses end-of-day prices, while live trades happen throughout the day).

Technology was the unambiguous engine of the portfolio this week, with our holdings returning +5.1% versus the XLK's +3.6% — an outperformance of +1.5 percentage points that translated directly into +1.1pp of portfolio contribution. The story here was memory and storage: WDC's extraordinary +32.6% week, combined with MU's +15.5% and STX's +14.9%, supercharged the Technology sleeve well beyond what the broad tech ETF delivered. Consumer Cyclical was the one area where we trailed the benchmark significantly — our holdings returned -3.6% against the XLY's +0.5%, a -4.1pp gap, though the sector's small 1.7% portfolio weight limited the damage to just -0.1pp on the overall NAV. Similarly, Industrials underperformed the XLI (+2.7%) with our holdings down -0.3%, a -3.0pp gap, but again the modest 3.5% weight contained the portfolio impact to a negligible level. The clear takeaway: sector selection and stock selection within Technology more than compensated for underperformance elsewhere, and the portfolio's heavy cash weighting in Braking mode provided meaningful insulation from broader market volatility.

Pit Stop

Every week we put one or more of our standout performers under the spotlight — examining what drove the move, what the business does, and what it means for the portfolio. This week, there's one name that demands the full spotlight treatment.

WDC - Western Digital Corporation

Western Digital is a global leader in data storage solutions, manufacturing hard disk drives (HDDs) and NAND flash storage products under its WD and SanDisk brands. The company sits at the intersection of two of the most powerful secular trends in technology: AI infrastructure build-out (which demands massive storage capacity) and the ongoing enterprise upgrade cycle. This week, WDC delivered the single largest contribution to the portfolio at +0.6pp on a +32.6% weekly return — a move that is extraordinary by any standard. The catalyst was a combination of forces: the broader tech sector surge on Monday's Iran deal optimism (XLK +3.4% on the day), a significant analyst upgrade citing tightening HDD supply dynamics and improving NAND pricing, and growing market recognition that WDC's exposure to AI data centre storage is materially undervalued relative to peers. The six-month return of +322.2% from our position entry is a testament to both the power of systematic stock selection and the importance of holding through volatility. Our average entry of $542.60 versus today's $746.23 represents a +37.5% position return — with the thesis firmly intact.

Week Ahead

The week of June 23–27 is relatively quiet on the macro calendar, but it's far from uneventful for the portfolio — Micron Technology, one of our top contributors this week, steps into the earnings spotlight on Wednesday.

Portfolio Earnings

Micron's Wednesday after-market report is the key portfolio event of the week. With an estimated EPS of $20.69, the bar is high — but the backdrop of tightening memory supply, strong AI-driven HDD and NAND demand (themes that also powered WDC this week), and an already bullish market mood around storage names sets up an interesting setup. We will be watching guidance commentary closely, particularly around DRAM pricing trends and data centre customer order books, as these directly inform our thesis across multiple holdings in the Technology sleeve.

Key Events

A quieter week with no major economic releases scheduled.

With the Fed having delivered its hawkish message last week and no major data prints on the calendar, the market's attention will likely remain anchored to two themes: the evolving US–Iran peace framework (does the June 19 Switzerland signing translate into a durable agreement?) and Micron's earnings as a real-time read on the health of the AI storage cycle. For AlphaWizzard, the systematic process remains unchanged — the model will assess conditions at week's end and determine whether the data warrants any adjustment to our 26% equity exposure. As always, we let the signals lead; we don't anticipate or pre-empt.

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