Models & Strategies
How the leading playbooks are behaving right now — and which stocks fit each one.
A hand-curated field guide, written July 2026 — an editorial read of recent market behaviour, not output of Otto's screener and not investment advice. Strategies age: what re-rated yesterday is rarely cheap today. Every ticker below opens Otto's numbers-first deep dive — check the snowflake before you believe the story.
1 · Capex & infrastructure
selective outperformanceOwn the companies that build the country.
Otto's current matches computed 2026-08-09 · refreshes ~every 30 days
- PLTR Palantir Technology — Software - Infrastructure; +27% over 6 months; revenue +93% y/y.
- MSFT Microsoft Technology — Software - Infrastructure; +25% over 6 months; revenue +18% y/y.
- UNP Union Pacific Industrials — Railroads; +17% over 6 months; revenue +12% y/y.
- CAT Caterpillar Industrials — Farm & Heavy Construction Machinery; +16% over 6 months; revenue +24% y/y.
- GE GE Aerospace Industrials — Aerospace & Defense; +16% over 6 months; revenue +21% y/y.
Screen: infrastructure/defence/utility sectors with a positive 6-month trend, ranked by that trend. Screened within our curated ~100-ticker universe — not the whole market. Rule output, not advice.
Read the full playbook — history & US read
The oldest playbook in markets: when a government or an industry commits to a decade of physical building — railways, grids, factories — the builders' order books fill years in advance. The strategy is simply to hold the companies collecting those orders while the spending cycle runs.
Read more: Capital expenditure — Investopedia ↗
In the US what's working
Traditional infrastructure moves slowly here, but three capex waves are real: the CHIPS Act, re-shoring of manufacturing, and above all the physical build-out behind AI. Data centres need power generation, cooling and grid equipment — and the companies supplying them have traded like growth stocks.
2 · Mega-cap quality growth
#1 in the USBuy the undisputed leaders, pay up, hold on.
Otto's current matches computed 2026-08-09 · refreshes ~every 30 days
- NVDA NVIDIA Mega-cap ($5.4T) still compounding: revenue +85% y/y on 63% profit margins.
- PLTR Palantir Mega-cap ($413.4B) still compounding: revenue +93% y/y on 49% profit margins.
- AVGO Broadcom Mega-cap ($2.0T) still compounding: revenue +48% y/y on 39% profit margins.
- LLY Eli Lilly Mega-cap ($1.1T) still compounding: revenue +48% y/y on 34% profit margins.
- GOOGL Alphabet (Class A) Mega-cap ($4.3T) still compounding: revenue +24% y/y on 55% profit margins.
Screen: mega-caps (≥$200B / ₹2.5T) with 10%+ profit margins and growing revenue, ranked by margins + growth. Screened within our curated ~100-ticker universe — not the whole market. Rule output, not advice.
Read the full playbook — history & US read
"Quality growth" means fortress balance sheets, fat cash flows and pricing power — and accepting you'll rarely get them cheap. The modern twist: in a market as efficient as the US, simply holding the biggest winners has beaten hunting for hidden gems.
Read more: Quality investing — Wikipedia ↗
In the US what's working
US returns have been historically concentrated in a handful of mega-cap tech monopolies — the "Magnificent Seven" and the AI-adjacent chip and cloud names. The winning move was refusing to be clever: own the leaders.
3 · Pure price momentum
works, but algorithm-dominatedBuy what's already going up — and respect your stops.
Otto's current matches computed 2026-08-09 · refreshes ~every 30 days
- ABNB Airbnb +46% in 6 months (+26% in 3); trading 0% below its 52-week high.
- CSCO Cisco +44% in 6 months (+26% in 3); trading 6% below its 52-week high.
- UNH UnitedHealth +49% in 6 months (+8% in 3); trading 7% below its 52-week high.
- MSFT Microsoft +25% in 6 months (+21% in 3); trading 7% below its 52-week high.
- BKNG Booking Holdings +21% in 6 months (+30% in 3); trading 6% below its 52-week high.
Screen: +15% or better over 6 months and within 15% of the 52-week high, ranked by blended 3/6-month return. Screened within our curated ~100-ticker universe — not the whole market. Rule output, not advice.
Read the full playbook — history & US read
Momentum is the most stubborn anomaly in finance: winners keep winning longer than theory says they should. It works until the liquidity that feeds it turns — which is why position sizing and exits matter more than entries.
Read more: Momentum investing — Wikipedia ↗
In the US what's working
US momentum is heavily algorithmic. Trend-following has paid best riding large-cap structural uptrends with tight risk management, to dodge sudden machine-driven reversals.
4 · The value re-rating play
value-trap riskBuy what everyone ignored, wait for the story to change.
Otto's current matches computed 2026-08-09 · refreshes ~every 30 days
- PYPL PayPal Still cheap at 11.2× earnings, and the market is re-rating it: +47% in 6 months.
- BAC Bank of America Still cheap at 14.6× earnings, and the market is re-rating it: +13% in 6 months.
- VZ Verizon Still cheap at 12.3× earnings, and the market is re-rating it: +5% in 6 months.
Screen: under 15× earnings (18× in India) AND rising over 6 months — cheap alone isn't enough, ranked by re-rating speed per unit of P/E. Screened within our curated ~100-ticker universe — not the whole market. Rule output, not advice.
Read the full playbook — history & US read
Classic value: buy statistically cheap assets and wait for the market to change its mind. The catch — cheap stays cheap without a catalyst. The strategy only pays when something forces the re-rating: policy, profits or scarcity.
Read more: Value investing — Investopedia ↗
In the US what's working
US deep value has underperformed for a decade — cheap American companies are usually cheap for a reason (legacy media, indebted industrials, disrupted retail). The exceptions: selective energy and financials during inflationary spikes.
5 · Quantitative smart beta
mainstream — yield & quality factorsFire the stock picker, hire the rule.
Otto's current matches computed 2026-08-09 · refreshes ~every 30 days
- MA Mastercard Passes a quality + momentum blend: ROE 241% with +3% over 6 months — the factors MTUM/QUAL-style rules buy.
- MU Micron Technology Passes a quality + momentum blend: ROE 67% with +122% over 6 months — the factors MTUM/QUAL-style rules buy.
- AAPL Apple Passes a quality + momentum blend: ROE 149% with +13% over 6 months — the factors MTUM/QUAL-style rules buy.
- AMD Advanced Micro Devices Passes a quality + momentum blend: ROE 10% with +132% over 6 months — the factors MTUM/QUAL-style rules buy.
- NVDA NVIDIA Passes a quality + momentum blend: ROE 114% with +21% over 6 months — the factors MTUM/QUAL-style rules buy.
Screen: a quality factor (ROE or margins ≥15%) blended with positive 6-month momentum — what rules-based factor funds buy. Screened within our curated ~100-ticker universe — not the whole market. Rule output, not advice.
Read the full playbook — history & US read
Factor investing sits between indexing and stock picking: buy whatever passes a transparent screen — momentum, quality, yield — rebalance on schedule, and let the rule remove the emotion. It's how retail money increasingly buys "strategy" itself.
Read more: Smart beta — Investopedia ↗
In the US what's working
Blended-factor ETFs — quality plus momentum — have performed exceptionally, and covered-call income funds have pulled in hundreds of billions from investors who want risk-adjusted yield more than pure upside.
The classic frameworks
CANSLIM, SEPA, Zulu, Darvas — built for the US decades ago, now fighting the algorithms at home.
CANSLIM
1933–2023
Otto's current matches computed 2026-08-09 · refreshes ~every 30 days
- ABBV AbbVie O'Neil's C: quarterly earnings +285% y/y; price 7% off the 52-week high — the breakout zone.
- AMZN Amazon O'Neil's C: quarterly earnings +245% y/y; price 3% off the 52-week high — the breakout zone.
- NVDA NVIDIA O'Neil's C: quarterly earnings +211% y/y; price 5% off the 52-week high — the breakout zone.
- BKNG Booking Holdings O'Neil's C: quarterly earnings +118% y/y; price 6% off the 52-week high — the breakout zone.
- BRK-B Berkshire Hathaway (B) O'Neil's C: quarterly earnings +120% y/y; price 1% off the 52-week high — the breakout zone.
Screen: quarterly earnings up 25%+ year-on-year with price within 10% of the 52-week high, per O'Neil's C and N. Screened within our curated ~100-ticker universe — not the whole market. Rule output, not advice.
Read the full playbook — O'Neil's story & the US read
Seven letters, one idea: buy fundamentally accelerating companies (Current and Annual earnings) exactly when the chart confirms institutional buying — the cup-and-handle breakout — and cut every loss at 7–8%, no exceptions.
Read more: CANSLIM — Investopedia ↗
In the US how it's holding up
High-frequency algorithms now hunt the obvious retail patterns — nudging price just past the breakout to trigger buying, then fading it to hit the tight stops. Outside the mega-cap AI leaders, US CANSLIM has been a choppy, low-win-rate ride.
SEPA / VCP
b. 1965
Otto's current matches computed 2026-08-09 · refreshes ~every 30 days
- CSCO Cisco A live volatility contraction: daily swings tightened to ±2.0% from ±2.8%, above the 200-day trend, 6% off the high.
- MRK Merck A live volatility contraction: daily swings tightened to ±1.5% from ±2.0%, above the 200-day trend, 2% off the high.
Screen: above the 200-day trend with recent daily volatility at least 25% tighter than before, near the high — Minervini's contraction. Screened within our curated ~100-ticker universe — not the whole market. Rule output, not advice.
Editorial examples hand-picked, July 2026
- AVGO Broadcom Volatility contractions kept resolving upward through the AI re-rating.
Read the full playbook — Minervini's story & the US read
Specific Entry Point Analysis: wait for a leader's volatility to contract through successively tighter pullbacks — the Volatility Contraction Pattern — then enter as price pivots out on volume, risking fractions of a percent to make multiples.
Read more: minervini.com — the official site ↗
In the US how it's holding up
The same whipsaw problem as CANSLIM: tight pivots are exactly what fake-out algorithms feed on, so pure VCP in US mid caps has been rough outside the leadership names.
The Zulu Principle
1929–2015
Otto's current matches computed 2026-08-09 · refreshes ~every 30 days
- JPM JPMorgan Chase Slater's PEG test: 15.3× earnings ÷ 47% earnings growth = PEG 0.33 (under 1 = growth going cheap).
- BAC Bank of America Slater's PEG test: 14.6× earnings ÷ 34% earnings growth = PEG 0.43 (under 1 = growth going cheap).
- CRM Salesforce Slater's PEG test: 22.3× earnings ÷ 52% earnings growth = PEG 0.43 (under 1 = growth going cheap).
- TXN Texas Instruments Slater's PEG test: 43.5× earnings ÷ 52% earnings growth = PEG 0.84 (under 1 = growth going cheap).
- MSFT Microsoft Slater's PEG test: 27.9× earnings ÷ 32% earnings growth = PEG 0.88 (under 1 = growth going cheap).
Screen: PEG under 1.0 on 15–60% earnings growth, per Slater — spectacular growth is excluded as cyclical recovery, not compounding. Screened within our curated ~100-ticker universe — not the whole market. Rule output, not advice.
Read the full playbook — Slater's story & the US read
Slater's rule: specialise narrowly ("be a Zulu expert"), hunt small, under-researched companies growing EPS 15%+ — and only pay a PEG under about 0.75, so the growth costs less than it's worth.
Read more: Jim Slater — Wikipedia ↗
In the US how it's holding up
Nearly impossible in the US now: predictable 15% growers get priced to PEGs of 1.5+ instantly, and a genuinely low US PEG usually flags a value trap — one-off growth about to mean-revert. No honest picks here.
Darvas Box
1920–1977
Otto's current matches computed 2026-08-09 · refreshes ~every 30 days
- BAC Bank of America Within 0.1% of its highest close in our 5-year window — the top of a fresh Darvas box (+24% in 3 months).
- JPM JPMorgan Chase Within 0.5% of its highest close in our 5-year window — the top of a fresh Darvas box (+19% in 3 months).
- KO Coca-Cola Within 2.3% of its highest close in our 5-year window — the top of a fresh Darvas box (+12% in 3 months).
- V Visa Within 2.2% of its highest close in our 5-year window — the top of a fresh Darvas box (+14% in 3 months).
- GE GE Aerospace Within 2.9% of its highest close in our 5-year window — the top of a fresh Darvas box (+25% in 3 months).
Screen: within 3% of the highest close in our 5-year window and rising over 3 months — the top of the box. Screened within our curated ~100-ticker universe — not the whole market. Rule output, not advice.
Read the full playbook — Darvas's story & the US read
Darvas bought only stocks punching to new all-time highs on heavy volume, drew a "box" around each consolidation, bought the break of the box top and trailed his stop beneath it. No forecasts — price only.
Read more: Darvas Box theory — Investopedia ↗
In the US how it's holding up
Concentrated success: the boxes forced you into semiconductors, AI and GLP-1 names — which happened to be the biggest moves of the decade. Outside them, mostly sideways frustration.
The bottom line
United StatesThe winning US strategy has been recognising structural technological shifts — AI, cloud, data centres — and not being afraid to pay a premium for the highest-quality global monopolies.
Hi! I can explain any playbook on this page — what it is, who invented it, why it's working (or not) in the US right now.
Otto explains what's on this page — not investment advice.