High Risk

Recent Performance — Last 5 Sessions

Today = vs our Oct 16 mark ($1,466.74). Friday’s update was emailed and texted, so this is also the last figure you received; there is no separate emitted basis today. Live marks (Mon, 8:01 MDT, 31 minutes after the open, 10:01 Eastern); the daily move is measured against our Oct 16 (Friday) published mark, which was also emailed and texted, so it is the same figure you received — two bases today rather than three. The direction matters, so read it before the numbers: Friday’s tape kept falling after we marked at 9:51 Eastern, so Friday’s official close landed below our mark. That makes today’s headline, which is measured against our mark, the harsher of the two readings — your own screen measures from that official close and will look better than our number. Both readings are printed, for the book and for every position. October MTD is measured from Wednesday Sep 30’s official month-end close. October MTD vs Sep 30 close ($1,733.06). Friday’s official close was $1,394.28 — 4.94% below our mark — so on the close basis today is +2.7%. 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. Today’s move is measured against our Oct 16 mark ($1,466.74), which was both published and emailed, so it is the number you actually received. But this book kept falling after we marked at 9:51 Eastern and closed Friday at $1,394.28 — 4.94% below the figure we sent you. Measured from that close the book is +2.7% rather than -2.4%, and the close figure is the one your brokerage screen will show. So our headline is the harsher reading and your screen will look better; we print both and lead with ours. That gap is also the subject of the second paragraph below, because Friday’s letter described a day that got materially worse after we measured it. 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 16 mark, with the vs-Friday’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 (Mon, 8:01 MDT, 31 minutes after the open, 10:01 Eastern); the daily move is measured against our Oct 16 (Friday) published mark, which was also emailed and texted, so it is the same figure you received — two bases today rather than three. The direction matters, so read it before the numbers: Friday’s tape kept falling after we marked at 9:51 Eastern, so Friday’s official close landed below our mark. That makes today’s headline, which is measured against our mark, the harsher of the two readings — your own screen measures from that official close and will look better than our number. Both readings are printed, for the book and for every position. October MTD is measured 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 $1,431 on the current whole-share model, and the two bases disagree today, so take the worse one first. Against our Oct 16 mark — the figure we emailed and texted you — this book is -2.4%. Against Friday’s official close of $1,394.28 it is +2.7%. The second number is the one your brokerage screen will show, and it is the kinder of the two, because this book kept falling after we marked and closed 4.94% below the figure we sent. October is -17.4% month to date and the year is negative at -12.5%. We are leading with our own harsher reading rather than the one that looks better.

Before the news, an accounting of Friday, because this book is where our timing did real damage to the description. We marked at 9:51 Eastern at $1,466.74. High Risk then fell for the rest of the session and closed at $1,394.28 — 4.94% below the figure we emailed and texted you. Friday’s letter told you to read the day as down roughly five percent; measured from close to close the day was down about 9.5%. Our mark understated Friday’s decline by nearly half. That is not a rounding difference, and it is the third consecutive session in which mark timing has materially misdescribed the day — once in your favour, twice against the description. The mark is an honest price honestly timed, but a single morning print cannot carry the whole day, and on a book this leveraged the gap is large enough to matter. We would rather write this paragraph than have you reconcile it yourself.

Now the thing that actually happened on Friday, and it is the most important paragraph in this letter. We told you MSCI had not removed Strategy from anything, that the affected-company list is not published until November 11, that any exclusion takes effect only after the close on November 30, and that an existing index member is removed only if it fails the screen in each of its two most recent annual filing periods. All of that was accurate and all of it still stands. And the market sold it anyway: MSTR fell 9.6% on Friday, from $151.29 to $136.83, while bitcoin itself fell 0.15%. Over the week MSTR is down 11.4% against bitcoin’s 1.9%. That divergence is the whole story. The market is not pricing a November headline; it is repricing the premium it will pay for bitcoin held inside a company that may lose index sponsorship, and it is doing so as a standing discount rather than a one-day event. Bitcoin did run overnight — about $82,750 at its best around 2am Eastern — and handed almost all of it back before our mark, sitting near $81,800 against $81,611 at Friday’s equity close, up 0.2%. So the asset is flat and the gap is MSTR’s, not bitcoin’s. MSTR is -3.1% against our Friday mark, +1.5% against Friday’s close today and its weight is 38.8% of this unit against 39.1% on Friday — weight moving through price, not through any trade. We hold four shares, the review of trimming to three is closed, and no trade was made. We will write again when the November 11 list publishes.

The semiconductor damage behind SOXL deserves its own measurement rather than an adjective. The semiconductor ETF fell for a ninth consecutive session on Friday and lost 11.8% on the week. We checked that against its entire price history — twenty-five years and some six thousand three hundred sessions — and a nine-session losing run ties the longest in the fund’s life, matched only once before, in May 2006. There is no longer streak on record. That is the backdrop against which SOXL is -0.8% against our Friday mark, +6.3% against Friday’s close and -44.6% since entry, with TQQQ -2.0% against our Friday mark, +3.2% against Friday’s close. The leverage arithmetic is the part to hold onto rather than any single day: a 3x daily-reset fund does not lose three times the index over a stretch like this one. It resets its exposure every afternoon and re-buys at each new lower level, so through a sustained choppy decline it loses considerably more than three times — and it needs a far larger rally than the one it fell on to get back.

And the reason we are not calling this morning a turn: the bounce is in equity, and the problem was never equity. It is credit. CoreWeave closed Friday at $61.39, down 11.9% on the day and about a quarter on the week; its 2032 notes, issued this year with a 9.625% coupon, now change hands near 15%, and its 2031 notes nearer 15.8%. Over the weekend Bloomberg reported that CoreWeave’s difficulties could close the high-yield market to new AI issuers, with junk buyers growing reluctant to fund exactly the companies whose business model requires continuous borrowing. We state that as the warning it is rather than as a door already shut. That is the read-across to NBIS, which is -5.2% against our Friday mark, +1.6% against Friday’s close and funds GPU capacity with capital-markets money against forward contracts: the same shape of business, so it reprices on another company’s bonds whether or not anything has happened at Nebius, and again there was no company-specific news. NBIS is -2.4% from our fill. Nothing in the weekend’s reporting suggests that financing channel has reopened, and a single green morning in the share prices does not reopen it — least of all this one, which is draining as it goes. Measured against Friday’s close, NBIS was up 5.4% at its best in the opening minutes and up 1.7% by our mark; SOXL ran +10.4% and was +6.4%. We marked half an hour in rather than at the bell, and the difference between those two readings is the whole reason we did.

Thursday is the date that matters most to this page. BE is -0.5% against our Friday mark, +2.6% against Friday’s close, and Bloom Energy reports third-quarter results after the close on Thursday, October 22 — the company confirmed that date itself in a press release on October 12, with the call at 5:00pm Eastern, so its reaction lands in Friday’s session. Together BE and NBIS are 28% of this book, and they are counterparties to one another, since one sells the other power for AI data centres. We checked the timing again this morning rather than carrying it forward, and it corrected something we had been saying: we had described the two as reporting together after the close on one afternoon, and that was wrong. The Nebius half is less settled, and we would rather say so than tidy it up. Market data providers carry Nebius for the same Thursday, before the open, which matches its own standing pattern — last quarter was an 8:00am Eastern webcast. But Nebius has not announced the date itself: there is no filing, its investor-events page lists nothing upcoming, and at least one provider still carries an estimate of November 10 instead. So if both land as expected, this is a quarter of the portfolio repricing across two sessions rather than one afternoon, which is the less concentrated version of the risk — but the Nebius leg is an expectation rather than a confirmation, and you should hold it that way. We got the Bloom date itself wrong once before, when an earlier letter put it on October 29 and we corrected that in print, which is exactly why we re-check it.

Bottom line: High Risk is at $1,431 a unit — -2.4% against our Oct 16 mark, +2.7% against Friday’s official close, -17.4% for October and -12.5% for the year. Five positions flip sign between the two bases today. SOXL is -0.8% against our Friday mark, +6.3% against Friday’s close, TQQQ is -2.0% against our Friday mark, +3.2% against Friday’s close, MSTR is -3.1% against our Friday mark, +1.5% against Friday’s close, BE is -0.5% against our Friday mark, +2.6% against Friday’s close and NBIS is -5.2% against our Friday mark, +1.6% against Friday’s close. Nothing here is a change of view and nothing was traded. The structure that produced a 19.5% September and this October is the same structure, and it is worth seeing written down: 34% in two 3x daily-reset funds, 39% in a bitcoin treasury company now carrying a dated index risk, and 28% in two AI-infrastructure counterparties that both report this Thursday, one before the open and one after the close. What we are watching, in order of how much it can move this page: Bloom Energy after Thursday’s close on October 22, with Nebius expected the same morning though not yet confirmed by the company; CoreWeave’s bond yield as the financing-side read on the entire AI complex; the MSCI affected-company list on November 11 and the November 30 effective date, with MSTR at 38.8%; the Federal Reserve on October 27–28; and the midterms on November 3.

Portfolio Builder | Market Update | Monday, October 19, 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.