Safe Growth

Recent Performance — Last 4 Sessions

Today = vs the Sep 23 published unit ($1,890). Live opening marks (Thu, near the open ~7:30 MDT); daily move is vs Wednesday's (Sep 23) 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 24): today’s move is measured against the Sep 23 published update ($1,890). 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 23 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 Wednesday's (Sep 23) 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 $1,852 near the open, -2.0% versus Wednesday's published update and -0.8% for September (August locked closed at +8.84% in the track record table below). Wednesday was a down day that got worse into the close, the Dow off 0.7% to 51,512, the S&P 500 0.75% to 7,706, the Nasdaq 1.1% to 26,936 and the Russell 2000 1.8%, and this morning opened lower again: the S&P down about half a percent, the Nasdaq 0.8%, the Russell another 1.8%. The reason is not Iran and it is not Xi. It is the bond market. The 10-year Treasury yield is 5.12% this morning and touched 5.14%, the highest since 2007; the 2-year is 4.90%, the highest since 2023; the 30-year touched 5.44%, a level not seen since 2004. Two things pushed it there in 24 hours. Wednesday's flash PMIs were not the modest cooling the consensus expected but a blowout: the composite came in at 58.4, the highest since July 2021, new orders strong, hiring at a pace S&P Global says has rarely been exceeded since the survey began, and input costs the hottest since October 2022. Then Fed Governor Barr said that in his base case "further policy adjustments are likely to be needed to ensure inflation comes down to target in a timely fashion," the third Fed official in three days after Goolsbee and Barkin to say September was a first step. Futures now price an October 28 hike at roughly 73% to 77%, up from about 53% a few days ago, six days before the midterms. Jobless claims this morning were 197,000 against 201,000 expected, so there is nothing in the labor data to slow the Fed down either.

That is the frame for TMF (-4.0%), the weakest position in the book against Wednesday's mark, with most of the damage done in Wednesday's afternoon selloff and the fund roughly flat at this morning's open. A 3x long-Treasury fund with the 10-year at 5.12% and the 2-year repricing a second hike is exactly what it looks like, and this copy has said for two weeks that it needs a Fed that is done. Three Fed speakers have now said the Fed is not done, and the market believes them. We are past the point of calling it a watch item and will put a replacement proposal in front of you; nothing changes before this update. Gold heard the same message. Spot is $4,262 this morning, down 0.6% and at its lowest since September 17, roughly 7% off for the month, and NUGT (-3.8%) is lower with it. The Chinese official bid under gold is intact, more than 1,000 tons imported through August, but a real yield this high is the one thing gold has never been able to argue with; as one analyst put it to Reuters, with little progress on ending the war, oil and Treasury yields stay elevated and that will "limit any scope for gold prices to rise." The position stays on watch rather than on the buy list. ETN (-2.4%) is lower for a second session after a four-day run that came with no company headline, which is the rate move hitting a stock priced for data-center growth, not a change in that growth. PPA (-0.6%) is a touch lower, and URA (-1.5%) is lower again after a 4% drop Wednesday, no company news, the long-duration commodity names taking the rate hit hardest, with UEC's results due September 29.

Iran gave the oil market exactly what the bond market gave stocks: a reason to take back what it had given up. Pezeshkian's UN speech was written for a domestic audience, "they hit us, but we did not bow our heads or bend the knee," "the US president called us terrorists but we are the victims of terrorists," Hormuz cannot be used "to impose insecurity upon us," and it earned near-unanimous praise in Iranian media, which tells you who it was for. The real news came around it. Rubio said Tuesday's three hours produced no major breakthrough, that a deal "would require negotiations over time," and that the president also has military options; the June memorandum is no longer the template. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran is still reviewing Washington's reply and that "many differences remain," security chief Rezaei said Hormuz stays shut until Iran's conditions are met, and overnight the hardliners turned on their own negotiator: lawmakers filed an impeachment request against Foreign Minister Araghchi, and the IRGC-linked Tasnim agency claimed his meeting with Witkoff and Kushner was never authorized by the Supreme National Security Council. When the market cannot tell who speaks for Tehran, it prices delay, and crude did what it does when the off-ramp slips: Brent rose nearly 4% Wednesday and is up another 3% this morning at $106.22, WTI $94.52, despite a 3-million-barrel build in US inventories and Saudi Arabia moving to restart the East-West pipeline. XLE (+0.5%) is the only green position in the book, up about 28% on our entry, and it is the one position we own that likes a 5% 10-year, because the same energy prices driving the yield are what it earns. The diesel export ban had a full life cycle in one afternoon: Energy Secretary Wright said a blanket ban would not work, Politico reported a 90-day ban was being drafted, a White House official rejected the report within hours, and this morning the administration is working with refiners on a voluntary export reduction instead. That is the right outcome for XLE and the right call on the merits, and diesel is still $6.53. INDA (-1.4%) and EWW (-1.0%) are both lower, trading the dollar and the rate move more than anything local.

Xi is at the White House this morning: arrival ceremony, Rose Garden military review, the bilateral, and a state dinner tonight with Jensen Huang and Tim Cook at the table. The one hard deliverable already landed before the two men met: Bessent said the Busan trade truce that was due to expire November 10 is extended through January 10, so the tariff cliff moves past the election. The rest of the agenda is Taiwan, where Trump has an arms package decision "in a fairly short time" and has called such sales a negotiating chip; rare earths, where China's 90% share of processing is the reason Trump has been, in Orville Schell's phrase, in "pander mode" rather than "bullying mode"; and an AI-safety proposal to exchange alerts on incidents. The substance is scheduled for APEC in November and the G20 in December. NVDA (-2.9%) is lower with the Nasdaq, and two chip stories are pulling on it beyond the rate. Michael Burry disclosed Wednesday that he added to shorts on Micron and the semiconductor ETF "in some size," arguing the memory shortage "will blow off as production catches up" within two years; the chip index fell 1% Wednesday after a 14% five-day run. And Oracle is down another 4% this morning after Bloomberg reported it sent a force majeure notice on Project Jupiter, its 2.45-gigawatt New Mexico data center, because the gas pipeline feeding it slipped from August 2026 to February 2027 on state permit denials. That is the debt and permitting side of the AI trade being repriced at a 5% 10-year, and it is why Nvidia, with no debt to speak of and guidance that assumes zero data-center sales to China, is down less than the leveraged names around it; any movement on export licenses out of tonight's dinner is upside that is not in the numbers. Micron reports September 30. MSTR (-2.6%) is lower against Wednesday's mark, most of that in Wednesday's session, and is a touch firmer at this morning's open with bitcoin near $83,400, down about 2% and now below the roughly $86,000 average cost of the ETF holders. The flow streak is technically five days but Wednesday's number was $32 million, all of it Morgan Stanley's new fund, with zero in or out of BlackRock's and Fidelity's; after $1.7 billion in two days that is a stall, not a reversal, and it landed on a day when everything with duration was sold. A $15.9 billion options expiry on Friday is the next event. Strategy bought 950 coins Monday and is buying back its STRC preferred. No trade before this update.

Bottom line: SG is down 2.0% against Wednesday's update with the 10-year at 5.12% and the market pricing a second hike in October after a blowout PMI and three Fed speakers in three days. Iran's speech, Rubio's "no breakthrough" and an impeachment bid against Iran's own negotiator put the war premium back into crude at $106, which helps XLE and nothing else we own; gold and long bonds are being sold for the same reason stocks are; and Xi's visit moved the tariff cliff to January before the meeting started. What to watch: whether the 10-year closes above 5.1%, whether Araghchi survives the week and who Tehran sends next, anything on Nvidia and export licenses out of tonight's dinner, bitcoin against $83,000 with Friday's expiry ahead, and Micron and core PCE next Wednesday.

Portfolio Builder | Market Update | Thursday, September 24, 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.