Top Picks from Kim Bolton, President and Portfolio Manager, Black Swan Dexteritas
Focus: Technology Stocks
Top picks: Snowflake, Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike
MARKET OUTLOOK:
In the middle of June, 2026 your BSD team hedged about one-third of the BSD Global Tech Hedge Fund’s stock portfolio, plus about one-third of our separately managed account’s stock portfolios. The hedge was composed of short equity index futures and options on equity index futures.
By the middle of July the hedge had grown to about 50 per cent of the notional value of the stock portfolios. By the last week of July the hedge had grown to 90 per cent of thenotional value of the stock portfolios. On July 28th, we bought back our hedge with the expectation that the stock market correction was nearing the end because our fundamental, technical and capital flows indicators showed the stock market correction was nearing an end.
It’s not often our hedging positively contributes to our returns because the hedging is meant to be an ‘insurance policy’ during stock market corrections. Our outlook for the remaining five months of 2026 is for stock market indexes to consolidate between now and the U.S. mid-term elections, with a significant stock market rally in December, 2026.
Market caution persists amid Fed hawkishness and geopolitical risks, but BSD views the current selloff as an opportunity to accumulate high-quality tech stocks rather than reduce exposure.
As AI moves from pilots into real production workflows, the next major challenge is not only building smarter models — it is making AI systems secure, governed, auditable, and trusted. The more enterprises deploy copilots, autonomous agents, and AI-powered workflows, the greater the need to control data access, identity, model behavior, compliance, and cybersecurity.
The Trusted AI Stack can be understood across three layers: AI Security Infrastructure, which protects the data, users, APIs, and systems AI depends on; AI Governance & Model Risk Platforms, which monitor and control how models and agents behave; and Trusted AI Applications, where regulated industries adopt AI only when trust, auditability, and operational control are built in from the start. Your BSD Team is proud to be your investment ‘eyes and ears’ in the technology arena.
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TOP PICKS:
Price target: US$293.53 Market Cap - BUS$93.71 Price - US$270.36
Snowflake Inc. is an American cloud-based artificial intelligence data platform company that provides a cloud-native platform used by enterprises to build, use, and share data.
Major products include the Data Cloud, Snowpark, Unistore, Native App Framework, Snowpipe, and Snowflake Marketplace. It launched Cortex, a set of generative AI services embedded into the platform and serves organizations of various sizes across a wide range of industries globally.
Named by analysts among software companies poised to benefit from enterprise AI workload modernization.
The shares rebounded as part of a broader tech recovery in enterprise software and heavy share sales by company insiders continue.
Q1 fiscal year 2027 product revenue reached US$1.33 billion, representing 34% year-over-year growth.Q1 FY2027 actual Earnings Per Share (EPS) was US$0.39, beating the consensus estimate of US$0.14.Next earnings release is expected on August 26, 2026.
30 Days performance: 7.43% 100 Days performance: 79.71%Buy one-third of a position here at ~ US$270.36 add at ~ US$256.84 and ~ US$243.32
Palo Alto Networks (PANW NASD)
Price target: US$336.70 Market Cap: BUS$259.99 Price: US$319.00
Core offerings include hardware and software-based next-generation firewalls, Prisma SASE, Prisma Cloud, and the Cortex AI-driven security operations suite.
It serves over 70,000 enterprises, service providers, and government entities globally, with its largest market concentration in North America.
The company expanded its AI enterprise and agent security capabilities with the introduction of the Idira identity security platform and the acquisition of Portkey in May 2026. It partnered with Deutsche Telekom in June 2026 to deliver AI-driven security with advanced sovereignty controls for European regulated industries.
For the fiscal third quarter of 2026 (reported June 2, 2026), revenue grew 31.1% year-over-year to US$3 billion. Diluted EPS for Q3 FY2026 reached US$0.85, exceeding analyst consensus estimates of US$0.79. Management provided full-year FY2026 guidance forecasting EPS between US$3.77 and US$3.79. The next earnings report is estimated to be announced on August 17, 2026.
30 Days performance: -3.92% 100 Days performance: 88.13%Buy one-third of a position here at ~ US$319.00 add at ~ US$303.05 and ~ US$287..
Price target: US$192.38 Market Cap - BUS$185.13 Price - US$181.80
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. is an American cybersecurity technology company based in Austin, Texas that provides cloud-native endpoint security, threat intelligence, and cyberattack response services.I t offers the AI-native Falcon platform, which unifies endpoint, identity, cloud, SaaS, and data protection. Key modules include Falcon Prevent (next-gen antivirus), Falcon Insight (EDR/XDR), and Falcon OverWatch (managed threat hunting). It serves diverse global sectors including finance, manufacturing, healthcare, education, energy, retail, insurance, and airlines.
The company reported positive near-term stock momentum following announcements regarding an AI alliance and EU partnership. It exceeded sector averages with a 4.57% stock gain over the past month despite broader tech sector declines. For the latest quarter, reported revenue is US$1.39 billion (above estimated US$1.36 billion) and net income of US$27.77 million. Annual recurring revenue (ARR) grew 23% year-over-year to reach US$4.92 billion. Earnings per share for the last quarter reached US$0.28, beating estimates by 2.97%.The next earnings report is scheduled to be released on September 2, 2026.
30 Days performance: 2.12% 100 Days performance: 67.88%Buy one-third of a position here at ~ US$181.80 add at ~ US$172.71 and ~ US$163.6.
| DISCLOSURE | PERSONAL | FAMILY | PORTFOLIO/FUND |
|---|---|---|---|
| SNOW NYSE | Y | Y | Y |
| PANW NASD | Y | Y | Y |
| CRWD NASD | Y | Y | Y |
Past Picks: August 13, 2025
Elbit Systems (ESLT NASD)
Then: US$461.66
Now: US$784.76
Return: 70%
Total Return: 71%
AeroVironment (AVAV NASD)
Then: US$254.81
Now: US$144.70
Return: -43%
Total Return: -43%
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (KTOS NASD)
Then: $68.75
Now: $45.01
Return: -35%
Total Return: -35%
Total Return Average: 2%
| DISCLOSURE | PERSONAL | FAMILY | PORTFOLIO/FUND |
|---|---|---|---|
| ESLT NASD | Y | Y | Y |
| AVAV NASD | Y | Y | Y |
| KTOS NASD | Y | Y | Y |
