Safe Growth

Recent Performance — Last 4 Sessions

Today = vs the Sep 15 published unit ($1,806). Live opening marks (Thu, near the open ~7:30 MDT); daily move is vs Tuesday's (Sep 15) published update (Wednesday's update was not sent, so this spans two sessions); September MTD starts from Monday Aug 31's official month-end close. September MTD vs Aug 31 close ($1,867.39).

Baseline note (Sep 17): today’s move is measured against the Sep 15 published update ($1,806) — Wednesday's update was not sent to investors, so this move spans two trading sessions, not one. September MTD is measured against the Aug 31 official month-end close of $1,867. August is locked closed in the monthly table at +8.84%.

Position Scoreboard — Sorted by Portfolio Weight

Today = vs the Sep 15 published unit. Since Entry = vs Jan 22, 2026. Weight = % of unit. Live opening marks (Thu, near the open ~7:30 MDT); daily move is vs Tuesday's (Sep 15) published update (Wednesday's update was not sent, so this spans two sessions); September MTD starts from Monday Aug 31's official month-end close.

Portfolio Allocation by Category

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

▲ Current month through today; July and August 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–Aug 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.

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Safe Growth is marked at $1,831 near the open, +1.4% versus Tuesday's published update and -2.0% for September (August locked closed at +8.84% in the track record table below). One housekeeping note first: Wednesday's update did not go out, so today's move covers two sessions, the Fed day sell-off and this morning's rebound, not one. The question worth answering is why a book like this is higher after the most hawkish Fed meeting in three years. Wednesday the Fed raised rates a quarter point to 3.75-4.00%, the first hike since July 2023, on a unanimous 12-0 vote. The dots showed sixteen of eighteen officials expecting one more hike this year, four of them two, no cuts in 2027 and core inflation not back at 2% until 2029. Warsh's press conference was short and blunt: inflation has been "too high for too long", the committee's standard for confidence "has not been satisfied", and he is "hard-pressed to describe broad financial conditions as restrictive." The Dow lost 631 points during the presser and the 10-year closed back above 5%.

Then the market slept on it and decided the news was better than the headline. The hike was never the risk; the risk was a chair who sounded like the start of a long campaign, and futures had priced three or four hikes by next summer. What the Fed actually delivered was one more, probably in December, since the October meeting lands six days before the election and nobody on the committee wants to move that week. A unanimous vote from a chair Trump appointed to cut, with an upbeat read on growth (Evercore's Krishna Guha called it "coherent, confident and consistently hawkish without coming across as crazily so"), reads as a Fed that is ahead of the problem rather than chasing it. That is why the long end rallied instead of selling: the 10-year is 4.96% this morning, the 30-year 5.31%, the 2-year 4.69%, all lower on the day, and RBC BlueBay's Andrzej Skiba said it directly, "Warsh's clear messaging could actually help support Treasury prices further out the curve." This morning's data made the same argument from the other side: jobless claims fell to 196,000 against 208,000 expected, near July's 60-year low, and continuing claims hit their lowest since January 2024. The Fed is hiking into a labor market that can absorb it. TMF (+2.8%) is the direct beneficiary, and this is the flattening we said a hike would produce: the front end takes the tightening, the long end gets relief. Still on watch, because one rally does not undo a one-more-hike dot plot, but the tradable bottom we flagged looks closer than it did Tuesday.

The second reason is oil, and it is the one that matters most for the inflation math. Brent is down 2.8% to about $103 and WTI briefly traded under $100 this morning after Reuters reported Saudi Arabia is moving crude out through the Strait of Hormuz to replace what the shut East-West pipeline cannot carry, using ship-to-ship transfers just outside the strait near Oman's Sohar port with the US Navy's help. Energy Secretary Wright calls the pipeline outage a "brief and temporary interruption" measured in days, and Riyadh expects about half the line's capacity back within days. Rapidan still expects Saudi exports down 400,000 barrels a day this month and says risk is skewed toward a larger disruption if the outage runs past September or the Houthis escalate, and Tehran's line overnight was that it will fight "until the last drop of blood", so this is a lower price, not a resolved war. Crude is still up more than 12% in September and diesel is still at a record. XLE (-1.9%) is giving some back on the lower print, which is what it should do; the position was bought for the supply shock and the supply shock is intact. NUGT (+0.6%) is steady with gold around $4,300 after a $126 round trip on Fed day, from $4,366 to $4,240 and back.

The third reason is the one driving most of this book's gain, and it has nothing to do with the Fed. Micron reported the largest quarter in its history after Wednesday's close: revenue of $41.5 billion against $35.7 billion expected, earnings of $25.11 a share against $20.49, data-center revenue above $25 billion in a single quarter, and a guide for next quarter near $50 billion. The stock is up about 17% and the read-through is the point: the memory shortage that the AI-slowdown essay was supposed to cool is getting tighter, not looser, and every incremental fab and rack needs power and switchgear. ETN (+5.2%) is the best position in the book on that read, with no company-specific headline behind it, just the data-center power complex repricing off Micron's capex signal, and NVDA (+2.1%) is higher with the rest of the AI supply chain. MSTR (-1.9%) is the drag: bitcoin is holding near $76,000 but spot ETFs lost another $296 million Wednesday on top of Tuesday's $450 million, about $746 million in two sessions, with BlackRock's IBIT leading the outflows, and the CLARITY Act is dead for the year. MSTR stays on watch. PPA (+1.2%) and INDA (+0.7%) are firmer; EWW (-1.0%) and URA (+0.1%) are roughly flat to soft. No trade before this update.

Bottom line: SG is up +1.4% across the two sessions since Tuesday. The market's verdict on Warsh is that one credible hike into a strong economy beats four hikes priced in fear, and Micron and cheaper oil did the rest. The number to watch from here is the 10-year: if it keeps falling with the Fed hiking, the long-end bottom is in and TMF comes off watch; if it goes back through 5%, the relief was a one-day trade.

Portfolio Builder | Market Update | Thursday, September 17, 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.