Fortress Balance Sheets
Large caps with minimal leverage and strong free cash flow — net-cash or near it. The rate-shock and credit-crunch hedge: when refinancing windows slam shut, these names fund themselves. Currently curated qualitatively; the planned upgrade is a quantitative screen from the fundamentals pipeline (lowest debt/equity with FCF and size floors).
Performance
Follow the theme against the wider market.
Series before each basket's creation date are a backtest of the membership as of creation; live tracking starts at creation.
| Return | 1 day | 5 days | 20 days | 60 days | MTD | YTD | 1 year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basket | -1.4% | -1.9% | -0.9% | +14.0% | -1.7% | +9.7% | +14.2% |
| vs FW 3000 | -1.1% | -2.1% | -0.5% | +7.3% | -2.2% | -3.3% | -4.1% |
Inside the basket · 25 stocks
Current members and the reasoning behind each inclusion. Returns are for individual stocks.
| Why it’s included | Added | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPRT | Debt-free auction infrastructure | +0.4% | +2.2% | +13.7% | -13.9% | 2026-06-11 |
| VRTX | Net-cash, franchise cash flows | -2.1% | +0.8% | +10.1% | +20.5% | 2026-06-11 |
| EXEL | Large net cash (Exelixis) | -0.2% | +8.4% | +9.1% | +34.6% | 2026-06-11 |
| REGN | Net-cash biotech with real earnings | -1.9% | +4.2% | +5.7% | +7.7% | 2026-06-11 |
| EXPD | Famously debt-averse logistics | +0.9% | -1.1% | +5.7% | +27.4% | 2026-06-11 |
| META | Minimal leverage vs cash generation | +1.0% | +6.7% | +4.2% | -6.4% | 2026-06-11 |
| V | Capital-light network, modest leverage | -1.0% | -1.7% | +3.7% | +7.6% | 2026-06-11 |
| MA | Same network economics | -1.1% | -2.7% | +2.9% | +2.0% | 2026-06-11 |
| NVDA | Trivial debt against the cash machine | +0.8% | +5.9% | +2.9% | +23.7% | 2026-06-11 |
| ANET | No debt, large net cash | +1.2% | -0.8% | +2.7% | +47.9% | 2026-06-11 |
| ABNB | Cash pile well above its converts | -1.8% | -4.0% | +2.2% | +34.0% | 2026-06-11 |
| MKTX | Debt-free trading venue | +0.0% | +0.4% | +1.0% | -8.5% | 2026-06-11 |
| ADBE | Low leverage, high-margin subscriptions | -6.7% | -8.6% | +0.5% | -23.9% | 2026-06-11 |
| MEDP | Debt-free CRO (Medpace) | -0.3% | -1.6% | +0.1% | +5.3% | 2026-06-11 |
| FTNT | Net cash; FCF-rich subscription model | -0.0% | -5.8% | -2.1% | +96.8% | 2026-06-11 |
| MNST | Debt-free beverage compounder | -0.6% | -6.5% | -3.0% | +14.3% | 2026-06-11 |
| ISRG | Essentially debt-free med-tech | -0.8% | -1.6% | -3.2% | -35.3% | 2026-06-11 |
| TROW | Debt-free asset manager | -1.0% | -1.3% | -3.7% | +10.1% | 2026-06-11 |
| DOCS | Net cash, no debt (Doximity) | -2.8% | -1.4% | -3.8% | -40.5% | 2026-06-11 |
| GOOGL | Net cash at mega scale | -1.1% | -2.3% | -4.4% | +8.3% | 2026-06-11 |
| QLYS | Debt-free, FCF-rich | -1.5% | -8.2% | -6.4% | +29.2% | 2026-06-11 |
| GRMN | Debt-free with a decade of net cash | -0.1% | -2.9% | -10.9% | +37.7% | 2026-06-11 |
| DECK | Debt-free and cash-rich | +1.6% | -2.2% | -12.0% | -17.2% | 2026-06-11 |
| ODFL | Near-zero debt freight compounder | +0.1% | -6.3% | -14.0% | +19.0% | 2026-06-11 |
| LULU | No long-term debt; lease-only balance sheet | -17.4% | -16.7% | -21.8% | -51.6% | 2026-06-11 |
Partial price histories: ABNB from 2020-12-10, DOCS from 2021-06-24.
How this basket is built
Equal-weighted, monthly-rebalanced, buy-and-hold between rebalances; dated membership changes take effect same-day.
Tracked since 2026-06-11. Membership decisions are documented below.
Read the methodology →Reading the returns
Basket returns include dividends. “vs FW 3000” compares the basket’s compounded growth with the benchmark’s. Green means positive; red means negative.
Membership history & changes
- expand
FW 3000 pass: added MKTX, MEDP, EXEL, DOCS, QLYS — names outside the S&P 500 but inside our broad universe; they count only in the FW 3000 version of this basket. Effective-dated to creation so the broad backtest covers the full set. The S&P 500 basket is unchanged.
- expand
Widening pass: added eight more net-cash/minimal-leverage large caps (ANET, FTNT, GRMN, ODFL, TROW, LULU, ABNB, DECK). No listed ETF screens on this criterion, so the basket carries no reference. New members are effective-dated to basket creation so the backtest and the reference correlation cover the widened set (the basket was one day old, with no meaningful live history to restate).
- create
Initial composition: 12 names, qualitative screen. Quantitative balance-sheet screen is the planned v2.