Safe Growth

Recent Performance — Last 4 Sessions

Today = vs the Sep 24 published unit ($1,852). Live opening marks (Fri, near the open ~7:30 MDT); daily move is vs Thursday's (Sep 24) 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 25): today’s move is measured against the Sep 24 published update ($1,852). 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 24 published unit. Since Entry = vs Jan 22, 2026. Weight = % of unit. Live opening marks (Fri, near the open ~7:30 MDT); daily move is vs Thursday's (Sep 24) 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 $1,856 near the open, +0.2% versus Thursday's published update, -0.6% for September and +1.0% on the week (August locked closed at +8.84% in the track record table below). Most of that move happened Thursday afternoon, after our update went out, and it happened for one reason: around midday Reuters reported that US and Iranian negotiators in New York are working on a phased way out of the war, with stage one being Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz and Washington lifting its economic blockade of Iranian ports at the same time. Six sources, two Iranian, two regional, two Western, with Qatar in the middle. A senior Iranian official put it plainly: "One way forward would be to solve the crisis in stages. The first would be to end the blockade and reopen Hormuz." Stocks had opened lower on the bond market and turned on that headline: the S&P 500 finished at 7,704, essentially flat, the Dow 0.3% lower at 51,350, and the Nasdaq closed a hair green at 26,939 after being down more than 1% at the open. Crude gave back its session highs the same way, Brent closing up 3.4% at $106.60 after touching $107.93, and it is $105.30 this morning, WTI $93.06, both down more than 1%. The caveats matter as much as the headline. Neither side wants to give up its leverage first, which is the same thing that killed the June memorandum in July; Foreign Ministry spokesman Baghaei listed seven conditions that go well beyond the strait, from ending the war on all fronts to lifting the blockade of Yemen; Iranian lawmakers formally registered the impeachment motion against Foreign Minister Araghchi, who must answer to parliament when he gets home; a White House official said Trump is open to talks but that Washington has little incentive to give ground from where it sits; and Iran-backed Houthis fired six ballistic missiles at Taif and Yanbu overnight, all intercepted. What did change on the ground is Saudi flow: the East-West pipeline is back in service and Riyadh sold close to 100 million barrels to Asian buyers for October and November delivery. XLE (-0.9%) is a little lower on the oil pullback, still about 27% above our entry and the only position we own that earns the war premium rather than paying it. Diesel is $6.52, gas $4.48, and that is the number the White House is really negotiating against with seven weeks to the midterms.

The bond market did not get the memo, or rather it got a different one. The 10-year touched 5.14% Thursday, the highest since 2007, and is about 5.17% this morning, a touch lower on the day; the 30-year is near 5.5%, levels last seen in 2004; the 2-year is 4.90%, after a weak 5-year auction midweek. New York Fed President Williams, the Fed's number two, told a London audience that inflation is "the big challenge," that the Fed has to get it back to 2% "in a timely manner," that it is "reasonable" to expect another hike by year-end, and that the era of explicit forward guidance is "over," echoing Warsh. He would not commit to October, and the market pared October odds slightly to about 70%; Schmid and Hammack speak later today. Then this morning's durable goods report gave the Fed one more reason not to hurry: August orders were flat against a forecast drop of 0.3%, July was revised to +0.9%, orders for nondefense capital goods rose 1.2%, and the manufacturing backlog grew for the 25th time in 26 months. Costco's quarter, sales up 11% with the consumer still showing up, said the same thing from the other side of the economy. That is the setting for TMF (-3.5%), the weakest position in the book against Thursday's mark, nearly all of it in Thursday's session as the long end sold off, and flat at this morning's open. Nothing about the last 24 hours changed what this copy said yesterday: a 3x long-Treasury fund needs a Fed that is done, the FOMC's own vice chair just said it is not, and the replacement proposal we promised is being written. No trade before this update. NUGT (-1.1%) is lower with gold at about $4,270, on track for a 2%-plus down week against a dollar near a two-month high, the same real-yield story that has kept the miners on watch all month. URA (-1.5%) is lower for a third session with no company news and UEC's results due Tuesday.

The Xi visit ended the way it began: with the trade truce extended to January 10 and nothing on chips. Trade Representative Greer said semiconductor controls were not even on the bilateral agenda, and the more useful fact is one that surfaced around the summit: not one H200 has shipped to China since Trump authorized the sales in December, because Beijing will not license the domestic use Washington's export permits require and is steering its companies to Huawei. Nvidia's guidance assumes zero data-center sales to China, so there is nothing to take out of the numbers; it also means the upside we flagged from the state dinner is not coming from that table. NVDA (+1.6%) is higher anyway, most of it in Thursday's afternoon recovery, and the semiconductor index rallied close to 3% off its Thursday low on the Hormuz report. The company news of the morning is a step removed from Nvidia but tells you the demand is intact: Akamai, a content-delivery company most investors had filed under mature, is up more than 20% on an $11.6 billion, seven-year compute contract with Anthropic that comes with a warrant for about 5% of the company. Seven-year commitments for AI capacity are what the data-center build is financed against, and they are the reason ETN (+3.3%) is the best position in the book against Thursday's mark. There is no Eaton headline behind it: the stock had given back two days to the rate scare, a UBS upgrade this month and a Bernstein reiteration on Monday are the backdrop, and Thursday afternoon it got its bid back when the market decided the growth was still there. MSTR (-2.3%) is the drag again, lower against Thursday's mark and lower at the open, with bitcoin at about $83,900 and flat over 24 hours; the quarterly options expiry settled before the US open this morning, the largest of the year at roughly $15 billion and 42% of open interest, and spot went through it without a move, well above the $75,000 to $76,000 where the option book would have wanted it. That is the good news. The rest is that the ETF flow that drove last week has been close to zero since Tuesday, bitcoin is below the roughly $86,000 average cost of the ETF holders, and a stock that trades as a duration asset does not enjoy a 5.17% 10-year. INDA (+0.2%) and PPA (+0.1%) are marginally higher and EWW (-0.7%) marginally lower.

Bottom line: SG is up 0.2% against Thursday's update and up 1.0% on the week, with the first concrete shape of a Hormuz deal on the table and enough caveats around it that crude only gave back a dollar. The 10-year is holding above 5.1% after Williams backed another hike and durable goods refused to fall, so long bonds and gold are still being sold while the data-center names got their bid back. Next week is the real test: UEC reports Tuesday, Micron and core PCE land Wednesday, the quarter ends the same day, the September jobs report is Friday, and whoever Tehran sends to the next round tells you whether Thursday's headline was a plan or a trial balloon.

Portfolio Builder | Market Update | Friday, September 25, 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.