What the Data Sees Through the Noise - 06.21.2026

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It's been a fairly noisy stretch of weeks since I last wrote. The Mid-East conflict has been pulling on headlines and on energy prices. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index dropped to a record low. The VIX crested around 31 back in March, walked itself down to the mid-teens by May, then popped back above 22 just before the June Fed meeting before settling back near 16. Meanwhile, the top 10 names in the S&P 500 are sitting at something like 40% of the total index value. Which is a lot of weight in not very many places.

For most retail investors, that kind of environment is paralyzing. You read the news, your stomach turns, you start managing positions on the basis of how the morning headlines made you feel. And then a week later the macro picture has moved twice and the gut decision you made on Monday is already stale. This is exactly when patient, disciplined data helps the most. It's also the moment most people set it aside.

While all of that was happening on cable news, the weekly rebalance was quietly doing what it always does. The screener ran through what's now 25 independent sources looking for convergence. Names where the multi-source ecosystem agrees the case is bullish, the intrinsic value gap is real, and the fundamentals back it up. The macro got loud. The data didn't get distracted.

Two names from this week's run that I think capture what I mean.

The first is large cap. Gilead Sciences (GILD) in health care. It's a name most subscribers will know, a big biotech with the HIV and HCV franchises. Six of our seven primary rating sources flag it Buy or stronger, with three of them on Strong Buy and zero Sells. Simply Wall St's intrinsic value model puts the stock at roughly a 53% discount to fair value. Forward P/E is about 12.8. Profit margin is north of 30%, ROE 43%, ROIC 21%. Beta is 0.33, which is roughly a third of the market's day-to-day swing. That's a name the data has been pointing at while the Mid-East headlines were eating the rest of the conversation.

The second is small cap. Huron Consulting (HURN) in industrials. Huron does consulting for healthcare and education systems, which tends to be a durable demand pattern through macro chop. Four of the six small-cap rating sources flag it Strong Buy with zero Sells. Simply Wall St says it's trading at a 73% discount to fair value. Forward P/E is 8.9, ROE 23%, PEG just under 1. The number that jumps out at me is the beta of 0.09. That isn't a typo. It means the stock has been moving almost independently of the broader market while the broader market was busy panicking. That is the through-the-noise picture in a single data point.

To be clear, these are data points, not recommendations. The data flags them. The decisions stay with you. Do your own research.

The principle behind all of this is the one value investors have been working off of for decades. The crowd reacts to narrative. The data measures cash flows, margins, and where the rating ecosystem is converging. In quiet markets the gap between those two is small. In noisy markets like this one, the gap gets wide. That's where the work pays.

The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy.John Templeton

Not sure where to start or know someone that could use the help? Help them tune out the headline noise and tune into the data by sending them this article and the UVstocks.io link.