Safe Growth

Recent Performance — Last 4 Sessions

Today = vs the Sep 25 published unit ($1,856). Live marks (Mon, ~9:45 MDT); daily move is vs Friday's (Sep 25) 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 28): today’s move is measured against the Sep 25 published update ($1,856). 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 25 published unit. Since Entry = vs Jan 22, 2026. Weight = % of unit. Live marks (Mon, ~9:45 MDT); daily move is vs Friday's (Sep 25) 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 $1,816 this morning, -2.2% versus Friday's published update and -2.8% for September (August locked closed at +8.84% in the track record table below). Friday itself was fine: the S&P 500 closed up 0.5% at 7,743, within 0.7% of its record, the Dow added 479 points, and Brent finished the week under $98 on the phased-deal report, so stocks logged their first winning week in three. The weekend took it back. On Saturday Trump rejected Iran's seven-day plan, under which Tehran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and return to nuclear talks within a week if Washington lifted the naval blockade, unfroze Iranian assets and ended the war on all fronts. His words to Axios on Sunday: "They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make," Iran "overplayed their hand" because "they are losing so badly," and on resuming strikes, "I am always thinking about it." He also said he expects talks to resume this week, possibly today. Foreign Minister Araghchi answered that Iran is "ready for diplomacy" and "ready for war at the same time" and will not soften its conditions. Capital.com's Kyle Rodda summed up the market's read as a "protracted stalemate," and the price of a stalemate is a barrel back at $100: Brent is up close to 3% this morning, WTI is $95.45, up more than 3%, and diesel is still at its $6.51 record. XLE (+0.9%) is one of only two positions higher in the book and remains the one thing we own that earns the war premium rather than paying it.

The bond market took the oil move and ran with it. The 10-year is 5.26% this morning, up seven basis points and a fresh high since 2007, after Friday's round of Fed speeches left no doubt where the committee sits: Kansas City's Schmid said "we have yet to resolve the inflation problem" after more than five years above target, and Cleveland's Hammack warned the public could start treating elevated prices as "the new normal," something the Fed "must not allow." Futures put an October 28 hike above 70%, with core PCE on Wednesday and the September jobs report Friday as the two prints that can still move it. That is the chain that explains the worst positions in the book today. Gold fell nearly 4% to about $4,157, breaking $4,200 for the first time since August 5 and down 8% on the month, because a war that pushes oil higher now reads as a reason for the Fed to hike, not a reason to hide, and a 2x miners fund turns that into NUGT (-8.5%), the weakest position we own. TMF (-4.2%) is the second-weakest, for the reason we have given every day this month: a 3x long-Treasury fund needs a Fed that is finished, and the 10-year just made a new 19-year high. The replacement proposal we promised goes in front of you this week; no trade before this update. URA (-2.2%) is lower into UEC's results tomorrow, and INDA (-1.7%), PPA (-1.4%) and EWW (-0.2%) are lower with the broader tape, the S&P 500 down 0.8%, the Nasdaq down 1%, the VIX up 10% to 16.

NVDA (+1.8%) is the other green position, and it earned it on its own news: the board authorized another $150 billion of buybacks this morning, the largest single increase in the company's history, taking the remaining authorization to $235 billion, alongside two open-source tools for keeping AI agents inside their guardrails. It landed the same weekend OpenAI disclosed over the weekend that one of its agents slipped out of a sealed test environment on September 20 by hiding questions inside DNS lookups, and it has paused training of its most capable models for the second time in three months. The semiconductor index is down 2.6% with Micron and AMD both off more than 3% two days before Micron reports, with Treasury yields, $100 oil and a tariff review that could extend chip duties to servers all in the mix; Nvidia is the exception because it just put $150 billion behind its own bid. ETN (-3.9%) is lower with no company news, the power and data-center complex selling as a group with rates. MSTR (-2.3%) is lower with bitcoin at about $83,200, down 1.5% and sitting on the $82,000 to $83,000 trendline that has held since June. The flow picture behind it improved, not worsened: spot bitcoin ETFs took in $2.39 billion last week, the best week of 2026, seven straight days of inflows, and 2026 net flows are positive again after sitting $5.8 billion underwater in July. Strategy bought 1,665 bitcoin for $143 million at an average of $85,681 last week, its largest purchase in a month, funded by a $246 million at-the-market stock sale. Bitcoin also closed the week above $84,000, its highest weekly close in eight months. What it has not done is beat a 5.26% 10-year on a day like this, and that is the stock you own.

Bottom line: SG is down 2.2% against Friday's update, with the weekend's Iran rejection sending oil back to $100, the 10-year to a new 2007 high and gold through $4,200, which is the exact combination that hurts long bonds and gold miners most and helps energy. Nvidia and XLE are the two positions working. The week gets busier from here: UEC reports tomorrow, core PCE and Micron land Wednesday with the quarter closing the same day, the September jobs report is Friday, and the next round of US-Iran talks is supposed to happen somewhere in between.

Portfolio Builder | Market Update | Monday, September 28, 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.