Our neural network read of quantitative trading is up more than two-fold over the past year, healthcare and technology led every horizon this week, and an AI Portfolio holding jumped thirty percent on Friday.
I Know First Weekly Newsletter | August 2nd, 2026
Good day, I Know First Universe!
Watch Here:Webinar Replay: AI-Recommended Stocks for August 2026
Read Here:I Know First AI-Powered Portfolio: +37.27% vs S&P 500 +32.09%
Top Stock Picks Based on Stock Prediction Algorithm: Returns up to 18.68% in 3 Days
Best Stocks to Buy Based on AI: Returns up to 12.43% in 7 Days
Top Technology Stocks Based on AI-Powered Stock Forecasting Algorithm: Returns up to 28.64% in 14 Days
Top Technology Stock Picks Based on Artificial Intelligence: Returns up to 22.0% in 1 Month
Top Healthcare Stocks Based on Pattern Recognition: Returns up to 57.16% in 3 Months
Quantitative Trading Based on Artificial Neural Networks: Returns up to 241.56% in 1 Year
This Week's Article Picks: Return Since Pick Date
Amazon.com Inc (AMZN)
+35.15%
PayPal Holdings (PYPL)
+28.91%
Adobe Inc (ADBE)
+22.74%
Amazon.com Inc (AMZN) is up 35.15% sinceMarch 29th, 2026,as expanding profitability through higher-margin businesses like AWS and advertising combines with strong positioning in structurally attractive markets, while improved cost discipline and scaling benefits build a foundation for sustained earnings growth.
PayPal Holdings Inc (PYPL) is up 28.91% sinceJune 29th, 2026,as PayPal resets its growth strategy around branded-checkout stabilization and Venmo monetization, with our algorithm showing a high signal on the one-year outlook even as the stock trades well below its DCF fair value.
Adobe Inc (ADBE) is up 22.74% sinceJune 12th, 2026,on Adobe's recurring subscription model and successful generative AI integration into its creative workflows, which support a case for undervaluation even after this run.
Webinar Replay: AI-Recommended Stocks for August 2026
Our August live session has now aired, and the full replay is available to watch. We walk through where the algorithm sees opportunity across the second half of 2026, including the live Q&A.
The Great AI Rotation of 2026, and the sectors where mega-cap companies are pouring billions.
The stocks positioned to lead Wall Street through the second half of the year.
The quiet rally of the Russell 2000, and the small-cap names the algorithm flagged early.
A behind-the-scenes look at how the forecasting signals are actually built.
Live Q&A with the I Know First artificial intelligence research team.
The Overweight Decision: How AI Forecasts Change the Timing of Sector and Megacap Positioning
Eleven sector ETFs and a handful of megacaps account for most of the tracking error in an index-relative book. This piece walks through what happened when the algorithm disagreed with the price on each of them.
Technology: the signal peaked at 341.9 in May, then collapsed 55% to 155.3 in four sessions before the sector fell 11.30% from its June 2 high.
Apple: the signal bottomed at 68.9 near the March low and spiked to 531.7 by April 12, ahead of a 29.46% advance, then faded to 199.4 at the price highs before a 7.35% post-earnings decline.
Alphabet: the signal peaked at 371.6 on May 1, twelve days before the stock topped, then collapsed to 5.7 by month end.
Microsoft: the signal held above 203.6 through a 23.38% drawdown, with predictability climbing to 0.60, ahead of an 8.13% earnings jump.
Communication Services: an elevated signal against a depressed price through late July pointed to a reversal rather than a continuation.
During the gap the algorithm looks wrong, because early and wrong are indistinguishable until the price settles the question. Read More:
IESC Jumped 30% on Friday, and It Is in the AI Monthly Portfolio
IES Holdings surged roughly 30% in a single session on Friday. The name is a current holding in our AI Monthly Portfolio, which rebalances every four weeks.
Ten stocks and ETFs per cycle, selected entirely by the algorithm.
Rebalanced every 28 days, across 18 periods from April 2, 2025 to August 2, 2026.
Up 37.27% since inception on April 2, 2025, against 32.09% for the S&P 500.
A 5.18 point premium over the benchmark, live and documented rather than backtested.
Moves like Friday’s are exactly what the portfolio is built to capture, and it is not too late to join. Join the AI Portfolio:
Top Technology Stocks: AI Finds Software Winners as Semiconductor Stocks Sell Off
The algorithm called the rotation out of chips and into enterprise software two weeks before it showed up in prices. This package returned up to 28.64% over 14 days while the semiconductor complex corrected sharply.
Manhattan Associates led the package at 28.64% over the two-week horizon.
Workday followed at 20.17%, a second enterprise software name near the top.
The package averaged 12.45% against the S&P 500’s negative 3.02% over the same stretch.
That is a 15.47 point premium, earned in a falling market rather than a rising one.
Semiconductor names corrected more than 16% across the same window.
Recurring subscription revenue held up where hardware exposure did not, and the algorithm separated the two before the divergence was obvious. Read More:
COST Stock Forecast: A Great Business at Too High a Price
Costco remains an exceptional operator by almost any measure of retail execution. Our valuation work finds the current price leaves very little room for error.
The discounted cash flow model points to downside from the current level.
The relative valuation approach reaches the same conclusion independently.
Membership economics and scale advantages remain genuinely durable.
The quality of the business is not in question, only the price being asked for it.
Given the limited margin of safety indicated by both approaches, the piece concludes with a Sell recommendation at this valuation. Read More: More:
How Hedge Funds and Family Offices Use I Know First, and The Performance Behind It: Read Here:
Top Mid-Cap Stocks Based on a Self-Learning Algorithm: Returns up to 26.68% in 1 Month: Read Here:
Which Day Should You Trade? Optimal Signal Timing for I Know First AI Forecasts: Read Here:
CEO Weekly Letter
Dear Fellow Investors,
This week the market got its relief. The S&P 500 rose 1.05%, the Nasdaq led with a 1.59% gain, and the Dow added 1.04%. The Russell 2000 was essentially flat at 0.05%. The VIX fell from 18.58 to 15.99, the calmest reading in weeks.
The reason was last week's anxiety running in reverse. A pause in the US-Iran conflict pulled WTI crude down 5.20% to about $84, roughly six dollars off where it sat a week earlier. The Federal Reserve left rates unchanged on Wednesday, and Microsoft jumped 16% on Azure growth, while Amazon and Apple came in mixed. Cheaper oil, a steady Fed, and one very large earnings beat: that is the week in a sentence.
What matters more is what our algorithm was saying before any of it happened.
Two weeks ago we flagged the rotation out of chips and into software. This week it paid in full. Our Top Technology Stocks package returned up to 28.64% over 14 days, led by Manhattan Associates at 28.64% and Workday at 20.17%, while semiconductor names corrected more than 16%. The package averaged 12.45% against the S&P 500's negative 3.02% over the same stretch, a 15.47 point premium.
The cost of being on the other side of that rotation became public this week. According to reporting from CNBC, Bloomberg and the Financial Times, Situational Awareness, the AI-focused fund run by Leopold Aschenbrenner, was forced to unwind its entire leveraged public book after the same move went against it. The fund was long AI infrastructure, names such as SK Hynix, CoreWeave, Nebius and Micron, and short software, with Adobe among the reported short positions. Those infrastructure holdings fell between 35% and 47% this month while the software shorts moved sharply the wrong way. Reported assets went from roughly $45 billion at the start of July to about $10 billion by Thursday, on leverage reported as high as 400%, with the levered book sold to Citadel at a discount. The fund had returned 439% net in the first half of the year.
We want to be precise about what we are and are not saying. We did not predict that unwind, and nobody should read it that way. What we would point out is that it was the same divergence read from the opposite side. Our algorithm was rotating into software while the most levered expression of the opposing view was still being added to. Adobe, one of the names on the wrong side of that short, is up 22.74% since we published on it in June and is one of this week’s three article picks. The timing of exactly that kind of positioning change is what the next piece is about.
And on Friday, IES Holdings jumped roughly 30% in a single session. It is a current holding in our AI Monthly Portfolio.
Top Stock Picks – 3 Days: Up to 18.68% Return
Our Top Stock Picks package returned up to 18.68% over 3 days, the stock prediction algorithm moving fast in a week that rewarded being early.
Best Stocks to Buy – 7 Days: Up to 12.43% Return
Our Best Stocks to Buy package returned up to 12.43% over 7 days, steady work across a stretch where the indices only found their footing midweek.
Quantitative Trading – 1 Year: Up to 241.56% Return
Our Quantitative Trading forecast, built on artificial neural networks, showing returns of up to 241.56% over a 1-year horizon, the strongest read across all six time horizons this week.
Top Signals This Cycle
Top Stock Picks (3 Days)
+18.68%
Best Stocks to Buy (7 Days)
+12.43%
Top Technology Stocks (14 Days)
+28.64%
Top Technology Stock Picks (1 Month)
+22.0%
Top Healthcare Stocks (3 Months)
+57.16%
Quantitative Trading (1 Year)
+241.56%
Six horizons, six different holding periods, the same pattern: the algorithm ahead of the move. That is one side of the story. The other is what happens when it manages a full portfolio rather than single packages.
We also published a longer piece this week on the overweight decision, which takes the same idea and applies it across the eleven sector ETFs and the megacaps that drive most of an index-relative book’s tracking error. Technology is the clean example: the signal peaked at 341.9 in May, then fell 55% to 155.3 in four sessions, and the sector dropped 11.30% from its June 2 high. Apple ran the same pattern in reverse, the signal bottoming at 68.9 near the March low before a 29.46% advance. The honest part of that piece is its central line, that during the gap the algorithm looks wrong, because early and wrong are indistinguishable until the price settles the question. That gap is where the decision actually gets made.
That is the subject of a piece we published on how hedge funds and family offices use I Know First. Forty-six percent of hedge funds now actively use AI, and adoption is climbing. Since January 2020, our Combined Strategy is up 756%, a 39.7% CAGR, against the S&P 500's 129.1%, outperforming in every single year, including 2022, when it gained 15.36% while the market fell 19.95%.
The AI Portfolio
Since Inception – AI Portfolio
+37.27%
Since Inception – S&P 500
+32.09%
Our Institutional AI-Powered Portfolio is up 37.27% since inception, against 32.09% for the S&P 500, a 5.18 point premium across 18 periods from April 2, 2025 to August 2, 2026, not a backtest, a live and documented track record.
The Great AI Rotation of 2026, and the sectors where mega-cap companies are pouring billions.
The stocks positioned to lead Wall Street in the second half of 2026.
The quiet rally of the Russell 2000, and the small-cap names the algorithm flagged early.
A behind-the-scenes look at how the forecasting signals are built.
Live Q&A with the I Know First research team.
Three Ways to Stay Engaged 1. Get Daily AI Forecasts : new picks across 6 time frames, every morning. 2. AI Monthly Portfolio : 10 stocks and ETFs, rebalanced every 4 weeks. 3. Exclusive Webinar Deals : the subscription offers from the August session, open now.
The algorithm is speaking again. Are you listening?
Warm regards, Yaron GolgherCEO and Co-Founder, I Know First
Past performance is not indicative of future results. All investments involve risk. Short selling and options trading carry significant risks and are not suitable for all investors. I Know First forecasts are algorithmic signals intended to supplement, not replace, independent investment analysis and professional financial guidance.
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Apple is working through production challenges on its foldable iPhone, a book-style design with a 7.7 to 7.8 inch internal screen and a 5.5 inch cover display, expected to launch in September above $2,000. The company is also developing an updated MacBook Neo with an A19 Pro chip and 12GB of RAM for the first half of 2027, alongside a base price increase to $699. Separately, Apple and Ford announced that Apple Maps will power navigation in Ford's upcoming Universal Electric Vehicle Platform launching in 2027, extending Apple's automotive reach beyond CarPlay.
