Week 5 Recap: A Nice Bounce on a Short Week

After last week's Thursday horror show, I was not expecting much from a shortened holiday week. Good Friday took a trading day off the calendar, which usually means lower volume, weirder price action, and plenty of opportunities for things to go sideways.

Instead, the market rallied, and the portfolios rallied harder. I will take it.

Week 5 Performance

Dates	S&P 500	Ensemble	Growth Eval	ML Model #1	ML Model #2
Week 5 (3/30 – 4/2)	+3.42%	+5.09%	+4.68%	+5.48%	+4.48%

Daily Breakdown

Date	S&P 500	Ensemble	Growth Eval	ML Model #1	ML Model #2
3/30	-0.33%	-3.18%	-2.65%	-3.46%	-5.10%
3/31	+2.91%	+5.48%	+4.79%	+5.68%	+6.25%
4/1	+0.75%	+2.79%	+2.18%	+3.11%	+3.27%
4/2	+0.09%	+0.00%	+0.36%	+0.15%	+0.06%

Cumulative Since Launch (3/2)

	S&P 500	Ensemble	Growth Eval	ML Model #1	ML Model #2
Total	-3.37%	-2.25%	-1.59%	-1.48%	+0.23%

Monday was a rough start, because apparently Monday always has to be Monday, and ML Model #2 got hit the hardest at -5.10%. But Tuesday showed up and saved the whole week. A +2.91% day on the S&P 500 is a big one, and the portfolios turned that into +5-6% days across the board. That is the upside of holding higher-beta names, and it is exactly the kind of day these models are built to ride.

By the end of Wednesday, every portfolio had turned the week positive. Thursday was a sleepy session that did not do much damage, and then the market took Friday off to think about what it had done.

ML Model #2 is back in the black at +0.23% since launch, which is not a lot, but it has been three weeks of being the only positive name on the board, so I am going to go ahead and call that consistency. The other three portfolios are within striking distance, all down 1-2%, while the S&P 500 is still down 3.37%.

Q1 earnings season is around the corner, which should give the market a few reasons to pick a direction. I have no idea which one. Ask me next week.

Thanks for reading!