Safe Growth

Recent Performance — Last 5 Sessions

Today = vs our Oct 12 mark ($1,814.11), published to the website on Monday; Monday was not emailed or texted, so vs Friday Oct 9’s emailed $1,809.08 the book is -0.1%. Live marks (Tue, ~7:31 MDT, about a minute after the open); the daily move is vs Monday's (Oct 12) published mark. Monday's update went to the website only - no email and no text was sent - so the move vs Friday Oct 9's emailed figure is printed as well. October MTD starts from Wednesday Sep 30's official month-end close. The US bond market reopens today after the Columbus Day close, so the long end is live again. October MTD vs Sep 30 close ($1,802.53). Monday’s official close was $1,810.52 — 0.20% below our mark — so on the close basis today is -0.2%.

Baseline note: today’s move is measured against our Oct 12 mark ($1,814.11), the figure published on the website on Monday morning. Monday’s update was not emailed or texted, so the last number that actually reached you was Friday Oct 9’s $1,809.08, and this page prints the move against that too: -0.1%. Monday’s official close was $1,810.52, 0.20% below our mark, so on the close basis today is -0.2%. The Today column in the position table is on the our-mark basis so it ties to the headline figure; the vs-close reading is printed beside it. October MTD is measured against the Sep 30 official month-end close of $1,803. September is locked closed in the monthly table at -3.47%.

Position Scoreboard — Sorted by Portfolio Weight

Today = vs our Oct 12 mark, with the vs-Monday’s-close reading beneath it wherever the two differ. Since Entry = vs Jan 22, 2026. Weight = % of unit. Live marks (Tue, ~7:31 MDT, about a minute after the open); the daily move is vs Monday's (Oct 12) published mark. Monday's update went to the website only - no email and no text was sent - so the move vs Friday Oct 9's emailed figure is printed as well. October MTD starts from Wednesday Sep 30's official month-end close. The US bond market reopens today after the Columbus Day close, so the long end is live again.

Portfolio Allocation by Category

Live Track Record — Since January 22, 2026 (Actual)

▲ Current month through today; July, August and September 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–Sep 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 $1,807 about a minute into the session, -0.4% against our Monday mark, +0.3% for October and -5.9% for the year. Before the numbers, one thing you are owed in plain language: Monday’s update was published to the website but no email and no text went out. That was our failure, not a decision, and it means the last figure that actually reached your inbox was Friday’s $1,809.08. So this page carries three readings rather than two. Against our Monday mark the book is -0.4%. Against Monday’s official close of $1,810.52 — the number your own screen would show — it is -0.2%. And against Friday’s $1,809.08, the last number we actually sent you, it is -0.1%. All three are inside half a percent and all three point the same way, which is the honest summary of this book across two sessions: it has not moved. The Today column below is on the our-mark basis so it ties to the figure above, with the close-basis reading printed beside it.

The bond market reopened today, and that is the real news in this book. Monday was a Columbus Day full close — Treasuries did not trade at all, which is why we refused to draw a rate conclusion from that session. Today they repriced, and they repriced in our favour: the 10-year is near 5.19% against the 5.24% it last printed on Friday, about five basis points lower, because money came out of semiconductors and went into government bonds. TMF is the best position in the book on both bases, +2.5% against our Monday mark, +1.8% against Monday’s close, and it is the first time in a fortnight that the long end has helped rather than hurt. We are going to be careful about how much that means. TMF is -29.6% since entry — still the worst structural holding in this portfolio by a wide margin — and a 3x daily-reset fund having one good morning on a five-basis-point move is not a thesis repaired. It is a flight to safety, and flights to safety reverse. September CPI lands tomorrow morning and will have more to say about the long end than today’s rotation does.

What drove money into those bonds was a second straight day of selling in chips, and this is where the two books separate. The trigger is competitive rather than macro: Samsung’s quarterly results landed alongside reports that China’s DeepSeek is developing its own AI chip, on top of Monday’s news of progress at the Chinese memory maker CXMT on DDR5 server memory. Samsung fell about 7.4% in Seoul, SK Hynix about 10%, SoftBank about 8% in Tokyo, and Taiwan Semiconductor about 1.8%. The Nasdaq is off roughly 1.2% and the S&P about 0.5%. Safe Growth owns one chip name at one share, so NVDA reads -2.0% against our Monday mark, -1.2% against Monday’s close and that is the whole of the direct damage. But two other positions caught it indirectly and you should know why: ETN and URA have quietly become AI-datacentre trades. Eaton sells the electrical infrastructure that powers data centres and uranium is the fuel for the reactors meant to supply them, so both fall on a day when the AI build-out is questioned, even though neither company makes a chip. ETN is -1.6% against our Monday mark, -1.6% against Monday’s close and URA is -1.9% against our Monday mark, -1.0% against Monday’s close. That is correlation we did not design and it is worth watching.

On oil, the story we have been following for three weeks turned around. Crude fell today — Brent near $105 and WTI near $92, both off roughly 1.5 to 1.9% — as the market started to price more Russian supply actually arriving. President Trump eased US sanctions on Russian diesel last week and then announced an energy ceasefire, which a White House official has since described as covering oil refineries only, with no confirmation from Moscow. Ukraine has now held off striking Russian refineries for two days. Russia, by Kyiv’s account, has kept hitting Ukrainian energy and critical infrastructure through the same period, so this is a one-sided pause rather than a settlement, and the Saudi–Houthi conflict is keeping a floor under the price. XLE is +0.2% against our Monday mark, +0.5% against Monday’s close — mildly higher on a day crude fell, and we are not going to dress that up as an oil call. It is money rotating out of expensive technology into cheap energy, and XLE is +35.7% since entry, still the strongest long-run holding in this book.

The rest of the book did what a diversified book is supposed to do on a day the crowded trade breaks. INDA is +2.0% against our Monday mark, +1.9% against Monday’s close and EWW is +1.3% against our Monday mark, +0.1% against Monday’s close, both benefiting from money leaving US technology for markets that never participated in the AI trade. NUGT is +1.8% against our Monday mark, +1.1% against Monday’s close as gold firmed into tomorrow’s inflation print. We say this every time it goes well, so we will say it again: NUGT is -44.8% since entry and remains the single worst position we own. One green morning does not change that, and it stays on watch. PPA is -0.9% against our Monday mark, -0.6% against Monday’s close and MSTR — the one share this book holds — is -1.3% against our Monday mark, +0.7% against Monday’s close, which is the widest basis gap in the book and the clearest example of why we print both numbers.

What is coming, in the order it matters. September CPI lands tomorrow morning, Wednesday October 14 at 8:30 Eastern, and it is the last inflation reading before the Federal Reserve meets on October 27–28. The market has an October hike at roughly 16 to 18% — essentially a hold — but is pricing a meaningful chance of at least one more increase before the year is out, so tomorrow’s number is the one that moves the long end, and therefore TMF. Third-quarter earnings season opened this morning with JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Citigroup, with Taiwan Semiconductor later in the week — the first hard test of the competitive claim behind this week’s chip selling. Then the midterms on November 3, which touch this book through two channels rather than one: the fiscal path a split Congress implies for the long end, and the fact that the administration’s stated reluctance to strike Iran before the election has itself become an oil variable. We do not forecast elections and we would distrust anyone who sells you a portfolio built on one.

Bottom line: Safe Growth is at $1,807 a unit — -0.4% against our Monday mark, -0.2% against Monday’s official close, -0.1% against Friday’s emailed figure, +0.3% for October and -5.9% for the year. The long bond paid for the first time in two weeks, emerging markets and gold absorbed the rotation out of chips, and the book is flat across two sessions while the leveraged book beside it is not. Housekeeping, unchanged and stated once so the thread stays closed: our review of replacing TMF and NUGT is closed and we are holding both, and every other position in this book, unchanged. No trade was made at any point during that review. What to watch: September CPI tomorrow at 8:30 Eastern, the 10-year’s reaction to it, and whether the Russian diesel pause survives contact with another week of strikes.

Portfolio Builder | Market Update | Tuesday, October 13, 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.