Exiting One Position and Initiating Another as We Become More Defensive

Buy, Sell Stock

Symbol	Transaction Type	# Shares Traded	Recent Price $	Shares Owned After Trade	% Portfolio
BROS	Sell	3,678	50.75	0	0
SH	Buy	3,225	37.25	3,225	2.25

After you receive this Alert and when the stock market opens, the Portfolio will make the following trades:

-- Sell 3,678 shares of Dutch Bros (BROS) at or near $50.75. This will close out the Portfolio’s position in BROS shares, with a gain near 12%.

-- Buy 3,225 shares of the ProShares Short S&P 500 ETF (SH) at or near $37.25. Following the trade, SH shares will account for 2.25% of the Portfolio’s assets.

Following our opening comments about higher oil and gas prices paired with a horrible February Employment Report leading to consumers dialing back discretionary spending, we are making the tough decision to shed the Portfolio’s position in One-rated Dutch Bros shares. Over time, we think the company's continued footprint-expansion story will prove out, however, in the near term, we are likely to see its shares become dead money as the U.S.-Iran conflict continues. We will place BROS in the Bullpen, with an eye to call them back up to the Portfolio when we see signs consumers are loosening their purse strings.

One sign of that could be when the conflict is over and oil and gas prices retreat, but if we see more job reports like the February one, it may be a bit longer for those strings to loosen. Meanwhile, we see these same pressures as an incremental tailwind for our shares of Costco (COST) and TJX (TJX) .

As for American Express (AXP) , the value proposition offered by the Platinum Card refresh is likely even more compelling. The current relative strength index (RSI) for AXP shares is 29.87, an oversold condition. The more we see that condition become stronger in the very near-term, the more inclined we are to pick up a few more shares for the Portfolio, especially if they fall below our near $296 cost basis.

We will take a portion of the returned capital from BROS and initiate a market-hedging position in SH shares, a move that, along with our cash level, will help buffer the Portfolio from continued market gyrations. Given the uncertainty of the duration of the U.S.-Iran war, the length of time the Portfolio will hold SH shares is also uncertain. That means we will be not only tracking developments for the conflict closely, but also the market’s technicals.

Last night, Helene Meisler shared that while one indicator points to the market being oversold, others point to more downside potentially ahead. This morning, Bob Lang’s analysis of the S&P 500’s chart suggests we could get stuck in a deep downtrend with some potentially wide swings in the market.

The S&P 500’s relative strength index, most recently at 38.45, tells us the market is still a distance from entering a classic oversold condition. If we see the S&P 500’s RSI move near or into an oversold condition with an RSI below 30, and the Volatility Index (VIX) moves to extreme levels like we saw in August 2024 and April 2025, that would be a potential combination to exit SH.

For members that cannot access SH shares, cash is a viable alternative.

More Pro Portfolio:

(Please note that we are looking to execute these trades at or near the share price mentioned above. Once the trade is completed, subscribers can see the trade's executed price here. Be sure to toggle the chart to sort by Purchase Date.)

At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long AXP, COST, and TJX.