On the Fletcher Investor Podcast, we look at Fletcher’s performance, compare it to the broader stock market, and discuss what the signals may mean for investors.
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
0:00
|
7:13
This week's Fletcher Friday Report tackles a rough stretch in the market, with major pullbacks hitting several Fletcher positions after the July 1 signals. Kyle breaks down how he's responding — buying into conviction positions rather than backing away — and shares why Fletcher, despite its recent volatility, is still beating both his personal portfolio and the S&P 500 year-to-date. The conversation turns to risk tolerance, concentrated investing versus broad index funds, and a nod to Charlie Munger's take on "de-worse-ification." It's a candid look at staying optimistic through a turbulent week in tech and semiconductors.
■ ■ ■
Fletcher content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal, and past or simulated performance does not guarantee future results.
Welcome to the Fletcher Friday Report. Today is Friday, July 17, 2026. Fletcher is an investment algorithm I created with simple monthly signals by, hold, and sell. Each week we look at Fletcher compared to the SP 500. It's been a very busy week with lots of pullbacks in the market. We've got a lot to cover, so let's get started. As I mentioned, it's been a turbulent week in the market, particularly for some of the Fletcher positions. Fletcher had a major pullback in general. We can look at the specific numbers in a moment. Given all this, I got to thinking about what do we do in big pullbacks like this? And for myself, I have my own approach. Just to look back a couple of weeks, we had July 1 signals, then the days, and now the weeks that have followed have been negative. So what am I doing personally in a situation like this? In general, I'm a buyer. When things are feeling negative, I'm going to increase positions where I have convictions. I'm looking for pullbacks, ways to buy in the dip, not in huge amounts, but I've got a little bit set aside to do that. So I've increased my positions in a few of the Fletcher holdings, mainly at a gut level, but it does add to the risk-reward equation. And that's a personal decision we all have to make for ourselves. For me, I'm traditionally an optimist. It doesn't mean that I don't fret sometimes. My emotions do start to kick in and I get a little worried. But I like to say I'm a good balance between being an optimist and being, let's say, a realist or even a pessimist. I've been an entrepreneur most of my career, so I feel like optimism is somewhat of a requirement. And that's part of how I'm wired, particularly when things might feel hopeless. I tend to look for the upside opportunity or the potential of what's to come. Let's go ahead and look at the numbers. As mentioned, we had a major pullback this week. For the week alone, Fletcher is down over 17%. And the SP was down about 1.5%. When we look at the month to date, as mentioned earlier, we had July 1 signals, and then the days that followed were negative. So for the month, Fletcher is down 22%, and the SP is basically flat. It's down a little bit. But I always say this, and I like to reiterate it now and then. I like to look at longer term, sometimes up to two years. So year to date, Fletcher is up 138%, and the SP is up nine percent. Now that year-to-date number has dropped quite a bit in the last few weeks, but at 138, I think that's a great return on investment. We'll see how the rest of the year goes. And again, I'm optimistic, so we'll be looking at this together. This week, if you've been following any of the news, you've seen a lot of attention given to semiconductors and it's AI-related themes and how there have been major pullbacks. It's a bummer to watch, to be honest. Again, I'm always the optimist and I've enjoyed the ride as we've had a great first half of the year. But we can't always be on the top of the value, right? There's an ebb and flow into the market. My personal portfolio is down to about where we were first part of June. So giving up about five or six weeks of growth, let's say. And Fletcher itself is in the mid-May territory. So Fletcher has given up about two months of growth. And I like to be honest and open about this. This basically illustrates the volatility of Fletcher, especially compared to my own personal portfolio. That's partly why I don't go 100% in on Fletcher. I've mentioned before that I started with about a third of my portfolio in the Fletcher signals. And it is a risk-reward equation. So far, happy to say that Fletcher is outperforming my personal portfolio year to date. More importantly, Fletcher is outperforming the SP, which is Fletcher's primary objective, and not just by a little, but by a lot. So that's what I'm going to continue to judge Fletcher against. One of the things I really enjoy about what I'm doing with Fletcher Investor is how it facilitates conversations with various questions that come up, viewpoints, and interesting investment methods. I'm intentional to tell others about how my personal approach may not fit theirs. As I've mentioned in the past, I have a high risk tolerance. And with that, I end up having a lot of tech in my portfolio. And there are others that might say I should be more diversified. I do like to mitigate risk, perhaps just different than other people do. I don't necessarily plan for black swan events. And I'd love to have a conversation about black swan events later. But for now, I'm just going to tell you that I'm not a fan of broad market index funds. In my opinion, mitigating risk also mitigates reward. And that plays into the philosophy behind Fletcher. So when I was building Fletcher, there was a lot of consideration to looking at where the reward is and acknowledging the risk. I found lately that I really connect with the late and great Charlie Munger. If you don't know the name of Charlie Munger, he and Warren Buffett were business partners. He had a term that he used for diversification. I don't know if he coined this or if this is something he heard along the way, but he would call diversification diversification. And I just found that humorous, particularly with how Charlie's wit. I found that humorous and applicable. For further context for how I approach investing, my individual stocks are all Fletcher. I'm not doing individual stocks outside of the Fletcher signals. All my other investing is via concentrated ETFs, one of which has less than 30 holdings. So I'm not doing very broad market index ETF investing. I'm happy to dig into this topic more if you like. Just let me know. I've got all sorts of opinions about risk and planning, and I'll actually save some of those thoughts for the future. All that being said, thank you for listening today. I hope the market is treating you well. To learn more about the Fletcher algorithm, go to Fletcherinvestor.com. Have a great week, and let's connect again next Friday.
