Safe Growth

Recent Performance — Last 5 Sessions

Today = vs our Oct 16 mark ($1,779.67). Friday’s update was emailed and texted, so this is also the last figure you received; there is no separate emitted basis today. Live marks (Mon, 8:01 MDT, 31 minutes after the open, 10:01 Eastern); the daily move is measured against our Oct 16 (Friday) published mark, which was also emailed and texted, so it is the same figure you received — two bases today rather than three. The direction matters, so read it before the numbers: Friday’s tape kept falling after we marked at 9:51 Eastern, so Friday’s official close landed below our mark. That makes today’s headline, which is measured against our mark, the harsher of the two readings — your own screen measures from that official close and will look better than our number. Both readings are printed, for the book and for every position. October MTD is measured from Wednesday Sep 30’s official month-end close. October MTD vs Sep 30 close ($1,802.53). Friday’s official close was $1,760.33 — 1.09% below our mark — so on the close basis today is +0.1%.

Baseline note — and read the direction of it, because it is the reverse of the gap we described to you on Friday: today’s move is measured against our Oct 16 mark ($1,779.67), which is both the figure published on the website and the figure emailed and texted to you on Friday morning — the same number, so there are two bases today rather than three. Friday’s official close was $1,760.33, 1.09% below our mark, because the tape kept falling after we marked at 9:51 Eastern. Measured from that close the book is +0.1% rather than -0.9% — so today our headline is the harsher of the two readings, and your own screen, which measures from that official close, will look better than our number. We would rather lead with ours. Both print, for the book and for every position below. The Today column in the position table is on the our-mark basis so it ties to the headline; 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 16 mark, with the vs-Friday’s-close reading beneath it wherever the two differ. Since Entry = vs Jan 22, 2026. Weight = % of unit. Live marks (Mon, 8:01 MDT, 31 minutes after the open, 10:01 Eastern); the daily move is measured against our Oct 16 (Friday) published mark, which was also emailed and texted, so it is the same figure you received — two bases today rather than three. The direction matters, so read it before the numbers: Friday’s tape kept falling after we marked at 9:51 Eastern, so Friday’s official close landed below our mark. That makes today’s headline, which is measured against our mark, the harsher of the two readings — your own screen measures from that official close and will look better than our number. Both readings are printed, for the book and for every position. October MTD is measured from Wednesday Sep 30’s official month-end close.

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.

Calculate Your Position Size

Safe Growth is marked at $1,763 31 minutes into the session, -0.9% against our Oct 16 mark and +0.1% against Friday’s official close of $1,760.33. Read the direction of that gap before anything else, because it is the reverse of Friday’s: the tape kept falling 1.09% after we marked on Friday, so today our headline is the harsher of the two readings and your own screen — which measures from that official close — will look better than our number. October is -2.2% month to date against -1.3% on Friday, and the year remains negative at -8.2%. Friday’s update was emailed and texted, so there are two bases today rather than three.

First, an accounting of Friday, because our own timing misdescribed it. We mark both books shortly after the open; on Friday that was 9:51 Eastern, and this morning it was 10:01 Eastern. Friday’s tape then kept sliding all session, and Safe Growth closed at $1,760.33 — 1.09% below the $1,779.67 we emailed and texted you that morning. So Friday’s letter, which described this book as roughly flat on the day, was built on a price the market spent the rest of the session walking away from. This is the third consecutive session in which the gap between our mark and the same day’s close has been material, and it has now cut both ways — one session our mark sat near the low and flattered nothing, the next it sat well above the close and flattered the result. The mark is a real price at a real time and we are not going to start choosing timestamps to suit the outcome. But you are entitled to know that the single number at the top of these letters carries that much noise, and we are telling you rather than letting you find it on a statement.

The day’s real move is in oil, and policy caused it. An executive order signed late Friday waives the sanctions package that had been due to bite — up to 100% tariffs on goods from the five largest importers of Russian crude and gas, China and India among them, plus penalties for buying Russian energy at all. A separate Treasury waiver already runs Russian diesel into world markets until April 2027, starting at 300,000 tonnes and rising to a million a month, although European officials doubt Russia can actually deliver that volume to Western specification. The price response was immediate: WTI $97.54, down 3.8% from Friday’s $101.41, which had capped seven straight up sessions; Brent $107.90, down 1.8% from a Friday close that was its highest since May. That is the first genuine supply-side relief in this oil story since the summer, and it lands directly on XLE, which is +1.7% against our Friday mark, +0.3% against Friday’s close and remains this book’s best long-run holding at +40.0% since entry. What keeps crude above $100 regardless: tanker attacks around the Strait of Hormuz and Ukrainian strikes on Russian refining capacity.

What did not happen is just as important for this book: rates and gold did not move. The ten-year sits near 5.10% against Friday’s 5.10%, the thirty-year 5.44% against 5.44%, the five-year 4.90% against 4.90% — flat to a basis point across the curve, and we say that plainly because several outlets this morning led with yields falling. Gold is near $4,184 against $4,181. So TMF at -0.2% against our Friday mark, -0.5% against Friday’s close and NUGT at -1.6% against our Friday mark, -1.5% against Friday’s close got no help from either direction; both remain on WATCH and TMF is still -26.0% since entry, which no single session changes. The one real shift is in expectations: after the hot September inflation print pushed October hike odds up sharply in the middle of last week, prediction markets now put a hike at the October 27–28 meeting at roughly 12–15% and a hold near 85%. We quote that as a market price rather than a forecast, and we note that a widely circulated 73% figure this morning came from a September article and is stale.

Four positions flip sign between the two bases today, so read the table carefully. Two of the fourteen positions across both books are higher and twelve are lower. Against our Oct 16 mark and against Friday’s close the book reads differently, and when the two disagree your screen is the one measured from the official close. ETN is -2.2% against our Friday mark, +0.4% against Friday’s close, NVDA is -0.2% against our Friday mark, +0.6% against Friday’s close, URA is -1.8% against our Friday mark, +0.3% against Friday’s close and MSTR is -3.1% against our Friday mark, +1.5% against Friday’s close. The rest of the detail: NVDA is -0.2% against our Friday mark, +0.6% against Friday’s close — it opened 1.1% above Friday’s close with the rest of the chip complex and had handed back most of that by the time we marked, ETN is -2.2% against our Friday mark, +0.4% against Friday’s close, PPA is -0.9% against our Friday mark, -0.3% against Friday’s close, URA is -1.8% against our Friday mark, +0.3% against Friday’s close, EWW is +0.5% against our Friday mark, +0.1% against Friday’s close, INDA is -1.0% against our Friday mark, -0.4% against Friday’s close, and the single MSTR share here is -3.1% against our Friday mark, +1.5% against Friday’s close — that last one is the subject of the other letter and matters far more to the other book than to this one. Both readings print position by position in the table below, so you can check either against your own statement.

The broader frame is worth keeping in view on a morning that opens green. Last week was the worst week for the index since late June — the S&P 500 fell 1.95% and the Nasdaq Composite 4.48% — and this morning’s bounce is both narrow and already fading. Futures pointed to the Nasdaq-100 up 1.36% and the S&P up 0.52% with the Dow down 0.22%; by our mark half an hour into the session the cash indices had slipped to the Nasdaq-100 up 1.1%, the S&P up 0.4% and the Dow down 0.1%, and the semiconductor ETF had come off +3.1% at the open to +2.1%. This is chips and AI names repairing part of a very bad week, losing their grip on it as the morning goes on, and not a broad advance in any case. We re-marked both books later into the session precisely so this letter would describe the fade rather than the first five minutes. For Safe Growth that is the whole argument for owning defense, energy, uranium, India and Mexico alongside the two technology positions: this book is -8.2% on the year while the other one is -12.5%, and the difference is not skill, it is spread.

Bottom line: Safe Growth is at $1,763 a unit — -0.9% against our Oct 16 mark, +0.1% against Friday’s official close, -2.2% for October and -8.2% for the year. Nothing was traded and nothing is proposed: our review of replacing TMF and NUGT is closed, we are holding both and every other position unchanged, and no trade was made at any point during that review. What we are watching: whether the oil relief holds or Hormuz overrides it, since this book owns both the energy upside and the rate consequences of expensive energy; the ten-year, which has gone nowhere for three sessions at a level that still hurts TMF; the MSCI affected-company list on November 11, which touches the one MSTR share here and is covered in full in the High Risk letter; the Federal Reserve on October 27–28; and the November 3 midterms.

Portfolio Builder | Market Update | Monday, October 19, 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.