Safe Growth

Recent Performance — Last 4 Sessions

Today = vs the Sep 21 published unit ($1,889). Live opening marks (Tue, near the open ~7:30 MDT); daily move is vs Monday's (Sep 21) 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 22): today’s move is measured against the Sep 21 published update ($1,889). 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 21 published unit. Since Entry = vs Jan 22, 2026. Weight = % of unit. Live opening marks (Tue, near the open ~7:30 MDT); daily move is vs Monday's (Sep 21) 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 $1,896 near the open, +0.4% versus Monday's published update and +1.5% for September (August locked closed at +8.84% in the track record table below). Most of today's number was earned in Monday's session after that update went out, and Monday turned into the best tech day of the year. The Nasdaq closed up 2.3% at 27,122, its first record since June, the S&P 500 rose 1.5% to 7,764.70 and sits 0.4% from its own record, and the Dow added 0.7%. The trigger was not chips at all: Meta's new Muse assistant held the top free-app slot for a third straight day, Wells Fargo lifted its Meta target to $796 from $640 on an "unprecedented download and active user trajectory," and the stock rose 11.3%, its best day since April 2025. The read-through is what moved the semiconductors. Muse plans, browses and acts across multiple steps on its own, and that kind of agent leans on general-purpose CPUs far more than a single prompt does; Vital Knowledge's framing was "continuous background routines, logic loops, and local data orchestration." So the money went to the CPU makers rather than the GPU king: Arm +17%, Intel +12%, AMD +10% to a $1 trillion valuation for the first time, the Philadelphia semiconductor index +4.3% for a fifth straight gain, while NVDA managed +2.3%. NVDA (+3.2%) is higher against Monday's mark; we would rather own the name whose chips still run the training and the inference than chase the CPU rotation, and a broadening AI trade is better for the whole book than a narrow one. ETN (+1.5%) is higher for a third straight session with no company headline, which is the data-center power story doing the work, and the point of Monday for this book is that an AI agent on 448,000 phones needs the same racks, power and cooling as the model that trained it.

The other half of the move is Iran, and it got more concrete overnight. Reuters reports a senior Iranian official saying Tehran can reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the United States eases military pressure and lifts the blockade on Iranian ports, that the proposal went to Washington through mediators on September 16, and that the delegation in New York has "full authority to revive diplomacy." The official's own words: "The US needs to announce that it wants to resolve the issue diplomatically, make that official, and then agree on a timeline for how the process will move forward." Secretary of State Rubio's answer was "We're open to that, especially if it has prospects of leading to something positive," paired with the line that Iran "can never have a nuclear weapon" and a plain statement that nothing is scheduled. Trump speaks to the General Assembly this morning; Pezeshkian speaks tomorrow; Iran's military is still promising "retaliation without limitations" if US operations resume. That is the shape of a negotiation, not a deal, and the oil market is trading it that way: Brent is down a fifth straight session to about $98 and WTI to just under $90, both at their lowest since September 8 and both still up more than 60% on the year. The physical picture backs the diplomacy up. CENTCOM's Admiral Cooper says crude and LNG flows through Hormuz are at a six-month high with the main lanes clear of mines, and Reuters has Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline restarted with exports resuming from the Red Sea, eleven days after the attacks shut it. XLE (-3.2%) is lower with crude, as it should be. We bought it for a supply shock, and the shock has not left the products even as it leaves the barrel: AAA's national diesel average set another record at $6.51 on Monday, up 82% this year, and regular gasoline is $4.47, up 50% since the war began. A $90 barrel and $6.50 diesel on the same day says the refining system, not the crude tanker, is now the bottleneck. The position is up about 30% on our entry and stays a strong hold; the risk we are watching is a real Hormuz timetable, which would take another $10 out of crude before the pump follows.

The Fed said the quiet part on Monday. Chicago's Goolsbee, speaking in London: "The only way to bring inflation down is to raise rates and narrow the gap between supply and demand," and, on what that means for the economy, "It's going to be painful." He named the oil shock and tariffs as supply shocks the Fed cannot keep looking through, said one more hike this year may not be enough, and pointed at AI data-center investment as the demand-side pressure that could force a more aggressive path. That is a direct contradiction of Warsh's line last week that the labor market need not suffer, and it is the first of ten Fed speakers this week; Richmond's Barkin is today. The bond market so far is choosing to hear the oil price rather than Goolsbee: the 10-year is at 4.94% this morning, a second day under 5%, with the 2-year and 30-year both easier. TMF (-0.5%) is not getting the benefit; it needs the 10-year under 5% for weeks, not days, and Goolsbee just explained why the committee may not let it. It stays on watch. Gold did hear him: the metal is easing to about $4,370 on the hawkish tone, and NUGT (-1.0%) is lower on it. Under the surface there is real support, with Chinese gold imports through August topping 1,000 tons, more than all of 2025, so we treat this as a rate-driven dip in a bull market rather than a top. The bigger calendar is tomorrow: Xi Jinping arrives for a three-day state visit, the first by a Chinese leader since 2015, with a Rose Garden military review, the summit and a state dinner. Bessent called the preparatory talks "very successful," the two sides are discussing tariff cuts on nonstrategic goods, and the complication is the Russia-and-Iran sanctions act Trump signed last week, which lets him put tariffs of up to 100% on countries buying Russian energy, China and India first among them. That is why INDA (0.0%) matters this week beyond its small gain: India is the other named buyer. EWW (+0.3%) is firmer with the Dow futures leading this morning, PPA (+0.2%) is higher, and URA (-0.6%) is still heavy after last week's Cameco cut; it stays on watch.

Bitcoin got the number it needed. US spot bitcoin ETFs took in $999 million on Monday, the largest single day of 2026 and past the $844 million record set on January 14: BlackRock's IBIT $381.4 million, ARK's ARKB $289.1 million, Fidelity's FBTC $238.8 million, Morgan Stanley's new MSBT $61.7 million. That is the third straight inflow day after $746 million left around the Fed and the failed CLARITY vote, and it is the answer to the question we asked Friday about whether the buyers were leverage or allocation. Strategy joined them, buying 950 bitcoin for about $76 million to reach 846,000 coins, its first purchase in three weeks. Bitcoin traded as high as $87,354 on Monday and is near $86,000 this morning, up about 10% on the week and 31% below January's all-time high of $126,080. MSTR (+1.1%) is a touch higher against Monday's mark because Monday's 9.5% gain to $168.50 was almost entirely in the opening print we already locked; the position is now just above our $160.98 entry. Two caveats we will keep repeating. The average cost basis of the ETF holders sits around $86,000, exactly here, so this is the level where the January buyers can leave at breakeven, and the technicians have resistance at $87,300 to $87,500 with $262 million of shorts liquidated in the past day doing part of the lifting. MSTR stays on watch. No trade before this update.

Bottom line: SG is up +0.4% today, and the drivers are the same three as Monday, each a step further along. Iran has put a seven-day Hormuz timetable on the table and oil is under $90 WTI for it; the AI trade widened from GPUs to CPUs on Meta's agent and took the Nasdaq to a record; and bitcoin drew its biggest ETF day of the year. Against that, Goolsbee just told the market a hike or two more is on the table and that it will hurt, diesel set another record at $6.51 with crude falling, and Xi lands tomorrow with a 100% Russia-oil tariff threat hanging over the summit. What to watch: whether Trump's UN speech this morning and Pezeshkian's tomorrow turn the seven-day offer into a schedule, how Barkin sounds next to Goolsbee, whether the 10-year holds under 5% a third day, and whether bitcoin can clear $87,500 with the ETF buyers now sitting at their own cost basis.

Portfolio Builder | Market Update | Tuesday, September 22, 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.