Safe Growth

Recent Performance — Last 4 Sessions

Today = vs the Sep 18 published unit ($1,837). Live opening marks (Mon, near the open ~7:30 MDT); daily move is vs Friday's (Sep 18) published update; September MTD starts from Monday Aug 31's official month-end close. September MTD vs Aug 31 close ($1,867.39).

Baseline note (Sep 21): today’s move is measured against the Sep 18 published update ($1,837). 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 18 published unit. Since Entry = vs Jan 22, 2026. Weight = % of unit. Live opening marks (Mon, near the open ~7:30 MDT); daily move is vs Friday's (Sep 18) published update; 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 $1,889 near the open, +2.8% versus Friday's published update and +1.1% for September (August locked closed at +8.84% in the track record table below). The week opens with the war premium coming out of oil and going into bitcoin, and both moves have the same root. Brent is down for a fourth straight session, the longest losing streak in three months, to about $102 and an 11-day low, with WTI back under $100 at about $97.60 and the November contract near $92.60. Two things are doing it. The physical one: satellite tracking has Saudi crude moving through the Strait of Hormuz at 2.9 million barrels a day over the past six days, against 700,000 a day in August, as Aramco reroutes what the damaged East-West pipeline cannot carry and says half of that line is days from restart. The political one: Trump told Fox on Sunday he is in "deciding mode" on Iran, that Tehran's choices are to "be wiped out, rot economically, or make a deal," and that he would "probably be open" to meeting Iranian President Pezeshkian at the UN General Assembly this week. Iran's security chief Mohsen Rezaei answered with six conditions sent through Qatar: end the war on every front including Lebanon, unfreeze Iranian assets, lift the naval blockade, stop backing the opposition, stop interfering internally, stop striking Iranian territory. KCM Trade's Tim Waterer: "a degree of risk premium is being removed from oil prices on hopes that a diplomatic path to de-escalate the US-Iran war may arrive this week." That is enough for stock futures to open the week higher (Dow +0.9%, S&P +0.7%, Nasdaq +1%), for the VIX to sit under 15, and for the 10-year to slip to about 4.95% from Friday's 5.01% close, with the 30-year at 5.30% and the 2-year at 4.74%. TMF (+0.8%) is a little higher on that, which is the only way it moves now: cheaper oil is lower inflation risk is a lower long end. It needs the 10-year to hold under 5% for more than a week, and it has not managed that yet. It stays on watch.

We would not confuse hope with resolution, and neither should you. The Houthis fired a ballistic missile at Riyadh at dawn on Saturday, the first attempt on the Saudi capital since this phase of the war began; it was intercepted, residents heard the explosion and saw smoke near the airport, and the same salvo went at Taif, Bisha, the Farasan islands and Yanbu, which is where the East-West pipeline ends. Riyadh asked Washington to hit the Houthis back, and Trump has, for now, declined. Iran itself has not fired at a Gulf host state in more than a week, which is the quiet the oil market is trading, but the former Pentagon official David Des Roches's read is that Washington will treat Rezaei's list as unrealistic, and Tehran's parliament speaker warned of a "painful" response if the US strikes again. So crude is pricing a rerouted barrel and a possible handshake in New York, not a settled war. The pump is telling the other side of the story: AAA's national diesel average hit $6.505 on Saturday, above $6.50 for the first time ever and past the 2022 peak, up 87 cents in September alone, and regular gasoline is $4.48. Bloomberg's headline this morning is that the wars are worsening a global fuels crunch, and it lands six weeks before the midterms. XLE (-1.0%) is softer with crude; the position was bought for a supply shock, and a record diesel print on a day crude falls says the shock is in refined products now, not the barrel. It stays a strong hold.

The calendar this week is light on data and heavy on the Fed. Ten officials speak between today and Friday, starting with Chicago's Goolsbee this afternoon and Richmond's Barkin tomorrow, and it is the first chance since Warsh's press conference to hear how many of them share his "too high for too long" view. Futures still price roughly even odds of another hike as soon as October 28; we would fade that, because October is six days before the election and December is where the dot plot's one more hike most naturally lands. The dollar index is holding above 100 after a 1% week, flash PMIs come Wednesday, claims Thursday, Michigan sentiment Friday, and the number that actually matters, August core PCE, is not until next Wednesday, September 30. The other event is Xi Jinping's state visit Wednesday through Friday, with the Trump summit on Thursday: the agenda is extending the tariff truce, rare earths, and a new US-China AI dialogue that Treasury Secretary Bessent floated over the weekend, and the dinner guest list includes Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, Satya Nadella and Qualcomm's Cristiano Amon. For NVDA (+1.7%) that is the China export question back on the table in the most direct way possible, and the stock is higher into it. ETN (+3.7%) added to Friday's gain with no company headline, the second such session in a row; the street's consensus target is above $450 and the data-center power story is doing the work. URA (+1.4%) is bouncing after uranium equities lost about 7% last week on Cameco's output cut and a softer spot price; it stays on watch. PPA (+0.5%) is firmer, and EWW (-0.5%) and INDA (+0.6%) are a touch higher with the dollar firm and India's Sensex coming off its longest weekly losing streak since 2020.

Which leaves the position that is actually moving. Bitcoin traded through $85,000 overnight, its highest print since January 29, up about 6% in 24 hours and 9% from where it sat at Friday's open, and MSTR (+21.4%) leads the book by a wide margin. That figure is against Friday morning's published mark of $138.40: the stock closed Friday up 16.4% at $153.92 and opened another 9% higher this morning near $168, so most of the position's gain landed after Friday's update went out. The flows we said had to turn have turned: US spot bitcoin ETFs took in $433 million on Friday, the biggest day since September 3, with Fidelity's FBTC at $310.7 million and BlackRock's IBIT at $108.4 million, enough to flip a week that had lost $746 million around the Fed and the failed CLARITY vote to a small net inflow. Two honest caveats. About $600 million of crypto shorts were liquidated over the weekend, so part of this move is forced buying rather than new money, and the average cost basis of the ETF buyers sits near $86,000, which is exactly where the price is now and where the sellers who bought the top in January break even; the technician Rekt Capital is already flagging a bearish divergence on the daily chart. Warsh hiked, the 10-year is still near 5%, the dollar is above 100, and bitcoin went up anyway. That is the same rates-and-dollar relief trade the rest of the market is running today, at a higher beta. MSTR stays on watch. NUGT (+0.5%) is firmer with gold near $4,400. No trade before this update.

Bottom line: SG is up +2.8% today. Oil is falling on a rerouted Saudi barrel and a possible Trump-Pezeshkian meeting in New York, bitcoin broke out on real ETF money plus a short squeeze, and the long end is getting a little relief from both. Under the surface the tape is narrower than the headline: more than half of S&P 500 stocks are below their 200-day average, the Russell 2000 is more than 5% off its high and the Dow comes in on a three-week losing streak, so this is a rally in the names we happen to own, not a broad one. What to watch this week: whether the UN meeting actually happens, whether the Houthis follow Saturday's Riyadh attempt with another, how many of the ten Fed speakers sound like Warsh, and whether bitcoin can hold $85,000 once the squeeze is done. Diesel at $6.50 is the number that does not go away if crude drops another $5.

Portfolio Builder | Market Update | Monday, September 21, 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.