Blue-Chip Momentum

The portfolio starts as all cash, so this is an initial build. Per the strategy, I ranked all 20 mega-cap stocks by their 6-month price return and picked the 5 strongest performers: UnitedHealth (+29%), Merck (+23%), Exxon Mobil (+17%), Alphabet (+17%), and Apple (+15%). These five clearly separated themselves from the next tier (Eli Lilly at +14.75% and Costco at +11%), so the top-5 cutoff is unambiguous. I'm buying each at an equal 20% weight, which uses all available cash and keeps every position under the 25% single-stock limit. UnitedHealth and Merck's strong recent momentum is echoed in current news -- UNH has rallied sharply into its July 16 earnings amid improving cost trends, and Merck has drawn a wave of bullish analyst price-target increases despite some regulatory headline noise. Because there are no existing holdings, the 'only sell if it drops out of the top 8' rule doesn't apply yet -- that will govern future rebalances once the portfolio is established.