High Risk

Recent Performance — Last 5 Sessions

Today = vs our Oct 14 mark ($1,581.81). Wednesday’s update was emailed and texted, so this is also the last figure you received; there is no separate emitted basis today. Live marks (Thu, 7:31 MDT, one minute after the open); the daily move is vs Wednesday's (Oct 14) published mark, which was also emailed and texted, so it is the same figure you received. TSMC's third-quarter results and Anthropic's third-quarter revenue disclosure both landed BEFORE this mark was taken, so the market's reaction to both is already inside these prices. Wednesday's tape fell after our mark, so the move against Wednesday's official close is SMALLER than the move against our mark; both are printed, for the book and for every position. October MTD starts from Wednesday Sep 30's official month-end close. October MTD vs Sep 30 close ($1,733.06). Wednesday’s official close was $1,515.87 — 4.17% below our mark — so on the close basis today is -5.9%. Sessions before Jul 14 reflect the prior book; the current holdings were established at the Jul 14 open.

Baseline note — read this one before the numbers, because today the two bases are far apart: today’s move is measured against our Oct 14 mark ($1,581.81), which was both published and emailed yesterday, so it is the number you received. But this book fell a further 4.17% after we marked yesterday and closed at $1,515.87. Measured from that close the book is -5.9% rather than -9.8%, and the close figure is the one your brokerage screen will show. Both print here and both print for every position below. Today the two bases do not disagree in direction anywhere — every position is lower on both — but they disagree in size by a wide margin, and the close-basis figure is the smaller one. We are leading with the larger loss because it is measured from the number we actually put in your hands. TSMC’s results and Anthropic’s revenue disclosure both landed before this mark, so their effect is already in these prices. October MTD is measured against the Sep 30 official month-end close of $1,733 for the current whole-share model. September is locked closed in the monthly table at +19.50%.

Position Scoreboard — Sorted by Portfolio Weight

Today = vs our Oct 14 mark, with the vs-Wednesday’s-close reading beneath it wherever the two differ. Since Fill = vs SOXL $179.62 / TQQQ $75.19 / MSTR $94.78 / BE $205.15 / NBIS $172.19. Weight = % of unit. Live marks (Thu, 7:31 MDT, one minute after the open); the daily move is vs Wednesday's (Oct 14) published mark, which was also emailed and texted, so it is the same figure you received. TSMC's third-quarter results and Anthropic's third-quarter revenue disclosure both landed BEFORE this mark was taken, so the market's reaction to both is already inside these prices. Wednesday's tape fell after our mark, so the move against Wednesday's official close is SMALLER than the move against our mark; both are printed, for the book and for every position. October MTD starts from Wednesday Sep 30's official month-end close.

Portfolio Allocation by Category

Live Track Record — Since January 22, 2026 (Actual)

▲ Current month through today; July, August and September 2026 are locked closed; return measured from the Jan 22, 2026 entry. * Jan–Mar 2026 are estimated partial-period returns carried from our May 2026 updates; they predate our daily archive (begins 15 April 2026) and are shown as estimates, not as-published daily marks. Apr–Sep cells are locked closed from official month-end closes; close-basis restatement pending the anchor review. No backtests, no hypotheticals. Units are price-return; dividends are not accrued.

Calculate Your Position Size

High Risk is marked at $1,427 on the current whole-share model, and this was a severe session that needs stating before anything else. Against our Wednesday mark the book is -9.8%. Against Wednesday’s official close of $1,515.87 it is -5.9%, because this book fell a further 4.17% after we marked and sent yesterday. The close figure is the one your brokerage screen will show and it is the smaller of the two; we are leading with the larger number because it is measured from the figure we actually put in your hands. On the year this book is now firmly negative: -12.8% for the year, against -3.3% yesterday, and its weakest reading since early September. October is -17.7% month to date against -8.7% yesterday. Yesterday’s update reached your inbox, so there is no third basis today. Every one of the five positions is lower on both bases.

Put October in plain terms rather than softening it: this book made +19.5% in September and has given all of it back and more inside eleven sessions. For context on the year, and stated carefully because we got a claim like this wrong in yesterday’s other letter: -12.8% is a bad number but it is not this book’s 2026 low. The performance chain traded below this morning’s level on 58 separate sessions this year, with the actual low in early August. That is context, not comfort. Nothing in these five companies broke operationally today. What repriced is the cost of the money behind all of them.

The answer to what hit semiconductors again is not a chip problem, and the clearest evidence is that TSMC beat this morning. The foundry reported before the open with third-quarter revenue of $46.72 billion against $44.6–45.8 billion guided, up 50.9% year on year, a 66.4% gross margin, and capital spending reiterated at $60–64 billion with 2026 to 2028 guided significantly higher than the prior three years. The company closest to actual AI demand told the market demand is intact and it is spending more into it. Chips sold off regardless. That combination only makes sense one way: the market has moved on from asking whether AI demand is real to asking who finances it and at what price.

Which brings us to the thing that actually moved this morning, and it is the demand side of the AI trade for the first time. Anthropic disclosed third-quarter revenue of $16.8 billion before the open, up roughly 45% on the quarter — against about 143% growth the quarter before. That is a sharp deceleration at one of exactly two companies whose spending plans underwrite the revenue forecasts for GPU clouds, datacentre buildouts and the power contracts behind them. Reporting on both frontier labs now has OpenAI guiding to roughly 2.2x revenue growth in 2026 and Anthropic to 4x or less. Anthropic also lists in November, and expectations for that valuation have fallen below $1.5 trillion. Set that beside Broadcom’s chief executive saying the constraint on AI expansion is access to capital, not chip or memory supply, and beside yesterday’s CoreWeave bonds at a 15% yield, and the shape of it is clear: financing costs rose while the revenue expected to service them was marked down. Every position in this book sits somewhere on that chain.

SOXL took the worst of it at -16.6% against our Wednesday mark, -10.7% against Wednesday’s close, and it is -45.1% since entry. The arithmetic of leverage is the whole explanation and we are going to keep repeating it because it is the single most important thing about owning this book: the semiconductor index is down roughly 10% over six sessions, and a 3x daily-reset fund does not lose three times that — in a sustained, choppy decline it loses considerably more, because it rebalances its exposure every afternoon and re-buys at each new lower level. Overseas made the same point in cash equities: the Kospi fell 7.57% into a bear market on its seventh straight losing session, with Samsung and SK Hynix each down more than 9%. SOXL is working exactly as designed. That design is punishing right now, and it is why the position is sized where it is. It stays a hold.

MSTR is -8.3% against our Wednesday mark, -4.3% against Wednesday’s close. Its weight is 38.4% of this unit, up from 37.8% yesterday — concentration rising again through drawdown rather than through any trade, because the rest of the book fell faster. And the date is now tomorrow: MSCI delivers its decision on Strategy on Friday, October 16. Its August consultation proposes screening non-operating companies out of the Global Investable Market Indexes, Strategy is named in MSCI’s own document, and JPMorgan has estimated roughly $2.8 billion of mechanical index selling if the decision goes against the company. The history matters, because this is not a first look: in January MSCI declined to exclude bitcoin treasury companies outright but barred any index weight increase from newly issued shares and promised a wider consultation. This is that consultation, arriving with this position at 38.4% of your unit. We repeat the commitment we have now made twice in print: if MSCI rules against Strategy and the stock gaps, you will hear from us that day, not at the next scheduled update. On the open item: our review of trimming from four shares to three is closed, we are holding four, and no trade was made.

The two AI-infrastructure names are where the financing story lands most directly. BE is -10.4% against our Wednesday mark, -5.3% against Wednesday’s close and NBIS is -8.0% against our Wednesday mark, -7.3% against Wednesday’s close. NBIS funds GPU capacity with capital-markets money and sells it forward on contracts, which is the same business shape the market repriced through CoreWeave’s bonds yesterday, so it reprices whether or not Nebius has done anything — and there was no company-specific news today. It is still only +0.2% from our fill, so this remains roughly a round trip rather than a loss. Both companies report third-quarter results on October 22 — roughly 28% of this book, held in two firms that are counterparties to each other, repricing on the same afternoon. Bloom supplies more than 300 megawatts of solid-oxide fuel cells to Nebius under a ten-year agreement worth up to $2.6 billion, with Oaktree and Industrial Development Funding putting $1.7 billion behind Bloom-powered infrastructure for Nebius’s cloud. Their risk is not independent, and both are building capacity with borrowed money into a cost of capital that rose this morning. TQQQ is -8.0% against our Wednesday mark, -4.7% against Wednesday’s close and -6.0% since entry.

Bottom line: High Risk is at $1,427 a unit — -9.8% against our Wednesday mark, -5.9% against Wednesday’s official close, -17.7% for October and -12.8% for the year. The structure that produced a 19.5% September and this October is the same structure, and it is worth seeing written down on a day like today: 34% in two 3x daily-reset funds, 38% in a bitcoin treasury company facing an index decision tomorrow, and 28% in two AI-infrastructure counterparties reporting on the same afternoon next week. Nothing here is a change of view and nothing was traded. What we are watching, in order of how much it can move this page: MSCI on Strategy tomorrow, Friday October 16, with MSTR at 38.4% of the book; whether the frontier labs’ growth figures get revised further, which is now the demand-side read on everything this book owns; CoreWeave’s bond yield as the financing-side read; BE and NBIS together on October 22; the Federal Reserve on October 27–28; and the midterms on November 3.

Portfolio Builder | Market Update | Thursday, October 15, 2026

Trade Ledger — Entry & Exit History

Every position we open and close, newest first. Realized P/L on closes is marked against the original entry price.

Entry prices verified against the Jan 22, 2026 cost basis. “Open” = still held today. An entry marked “Closed <date>” was exited in that rotation — its realized result is shown on the CLOSE row for that date. This ledger builds our public track record going forward.