Safe Growth

Recent Performance — Last 5 Sessions

Today = vs our Oct 22 mark ($1,737.89). That mark was published to the website on Thursday; none of Tuesday, October 20, Wednesday, October 21 and Thursday, October 22 was emailed or texted, so measured against Monday’s $1,762.69 — the last figure that actually reached you — the book is -2.8%. Live marks (Fri, 7:42 MDT, twelve minutes after the open, 9:42 Eastern); the daily move is measured against our Oct 22 (Thursday) published mark. Three consecutive sessions were published to the website but not emailed or texted — Tuesday, October 20, Wednesday, October 21 and Thursday, October 22 — so the last figure that actually reached you is Monday’s — three bases today, and all three print. The direction matters, so read it before the numbers: Thursday’s tape kept falling after we marked at 9:47 Eastern, so Thursday’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). Thursday’s official close was $1,723.44 — 0.83% below our mark — so on the close basis today is -0.6%.

Baseline note — please read this one, because there are three numbers today rather than the usual two, and the ordering is not the one you may be used to. Three consecutive letters never reached you. We built and published Tuesday, October 20, Wednesday, October 21 and Thursday, October 22 to the website, but for none of the three did the email or the text go out. That is our failure, not a market event, and it means the last figure you actually hold is Monday’s $1,762.69. Here are all three, genuinely harshest first — the order is computed from the numbers, not chosen. Measured from the $1,762.69 you were last actually sent it is -2.8%. Measured against our own Oct 22 published mark of $1,737.89 it is -1.4%. And measured from Thursday’s official close of $1,723.44 — the basis your own brokerage screen uses it is -0.6%. Note which one is mildest, because it is the opposite of the usual case. On most days the figure measured from the official close is the unflattering one and we lead with it. Today it is the kindest of the three, and only because it starts from the most recent and lowest point: this book did not round-trip across the sessions you missed, it fell and then fell again. It went from the $1,762.69 you were sent to $1,723.44 at Thursday’s close, a fall of 2.23%, and it is -0.6% again today. So -2.8% is the number that describes your position since you last heard from us, and it is the one we lead on. 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 22 mark, with the vs-Thursday’s-close reading beneath it wherever the two differ. Since Entry = vs Jan 22, 2026. Weight = % of unit. Live marks (Fri, 7:42 MDT, twelve minutes after the open, 9:42 Eastern); the daily move is measured against our Oct 22 (Thursday) published mark. Three consecutive sessions were published to the website but not emailed or texted — Tuesday, October 20, Wednesday, October 21 and Thursday, October 22 — so the last figure that actually reached you is Monday’s — three bases today, and all three print. The direction matters, so read it before the numbers: Thursday’s tape kept falling after we marked at 9:47 Eastern, so Thursday’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 $1,714 twelve minutes into the session. Before any number, the thing we owe you: three letters never went out. Tuesday, October 20, Wednesday, October 21 and Thursday, October 22 were all built and published to the website, and for none of them did the email or the text go out. So we are going to lead with the reading that measures from what you actually hold rather than the one that flatters us. Against the $1,762.69 you were last sent, on Monday, Oct 19, this book is -2.8%. Against our own Oct 22 published mark it is -1.4%. And against Thursday’s official close of $1,723.44 it is -0.6% — the mildest of the three, and the exact reverse of the usual case. Normally the close-based figure is the harsh one and we lead on it because it is what your screen shows. Today it is the kind one, because it starts from the lowest and most recent point. October is -4.9% month to date and the year remains negative at -10.7%. Three of the fourteen positions across both books are higher and eleven are lower.

The defining event of this session is an oil shock, and the first thing it tells you is where this book is positioned correctly. Houthi forces attacked targets inside Saudi Arabia and Saudi Aramco ordered the evacuation of its Dhahran headquarters on Thursday. Crude moved hard on it: the December WTI contract is $101.68 in the minutes around our mark against Thursday’s $99.47 settlement, up 2.22%, and the front-month December Brent contract is $115.65 against Thursday’s $113.17 settlement, up 2.19%. XLE is +0.6% against our Thursday mark, +1.3% against Thursday’s close — the best line in this book on either basis and the single reason the headline is not worse. It remains the strongest long-run holding here at +39.9% since entry. Two deliberate cautions on those crude figures, because this is precisely where we have been caught before. We quote the December contract on both days so the comparison is like for like: the continuous crude series rolled from November to December on October 20 and still shows a step down that no actual barrel took. The same trap sits in Brent and we walked into it on our first pull: the continuous Brent series has already rolled to January and quotes near $111, which is a different barrel from the one the market is actually trading. So the $114–115 Brent figures you will see in this morning’s headlines are not an exaggeration — they are the same December contract we quote above, and our own pull agrees with them. Thursday’s $113.17 settlement was itself a 4.0% jump from Wednesday’s $108.82 — the third such move Brent has made this month, after October 1 and October 8.

Here is the part of an oil shock people forget: it is not a story about energy shares, it is a tax on everything that burns fuel — and you can see that in the shape of the tape. In the minutes just before our 9:42 Eastern mark the Dow is down 1.13%, the S&P 500 0.56%, and the Nasdaq-100 only 0.18%. The semiconductor index is actually up 0.37%. That ordering is the reverse of nearly every bad day this month: the damage today is in industrials and the physical economy, not technology. It is why ETN is -2.4% against our Thursday mark, -1.6% against Thursday’s close — at 21% of the unit the largest single position here — and why PPA is -2.4% against our Thursday mark, -2.1% against Thursday’s close. Eaton has issued no news; its third-quarter results are due November 3, before the open, which is also the day of the midterm elections. Volatility rose but not violently: the VIX is 20.08 against 19.03.

And something genuinely important happened in the bond market during the sessions we failed to write to you about, so we are going to state it plainly rather than let it pass. The ten-year yield fell from 5.146% at Wednesday’s close to 4.953% on Thursday — roughly nineteen basis points in a single session, and the first close below 5.00% since September 22. We checked that against a full year of daily closes rather than asserting it. Today it is 4.968%, about a basis point and a half higher, which is why TMF is +1.7% against our Thursday mark, -0.5% against Thursday’s close — up against our mark, slightly down against the close. Do not read today as the long end paying off; read Thursday as that, and today as flat. TMF is still -21.4% since entry, which is the number that matters for it, and our review of replacing it is closed with no trade made. The Federal Reserve meets October 27–28, two sessions away.

Gold fell with shares again, and our leveraged miners did what leverage does. Gold futures are $4,042.40 in the minutes around our mark against Thursday’s $4,060.40 settlement, down 0.44%, and the unleveraged miners ETF is down 0.77%. So NUGT is -5.4% against our Thursday mark, -1.7% against Thursday’s close, which is roughly twice the miners’ move on the close basis and is exactly what a two-times fund is built to do. There is no company news in it and no change of view. It stays on WATCH at -54.7% since entry, which is the worst position in this book and we are not going to dress that up.

The rest of the detail, both bases throughout. NVDA is -2.3% against our Thursday mark, -0.1% against Thursday’s close — effectively unchanged against the close on a day the chip index rose, and still +14.8% since entry. The single MSTR share here is +0.8% against our Thursday mark, +1.6% against Thursday’s close, which matters far more to the other book than to this one. URA is -2.2% against our Thursday mark, -0.5% against Thursday’s close and remains the second-weakest holding at -40.0% since entry. EWW is -0.1% against our Thursday mark, 0.0% against Thursday’s close and INDA is -0.9% against our Thursday mark, -1.4% against Thursday’s close, the two emerging-market sleeves barely moving, which is what they are here for. One position flips sign between the two bases today, so read the table carefully. TMF is +1.7% against our Thursday mark, -0.5% against Thursday’s close. Where the two bases disagree, the close-basis figure is the one your own statement is measured from — and today that is the gentler number, so read the vs-sent figure alongside it.

Bottom line: Safe Growth is at $1,714 a unit, and all three readings rather than the convenient one: -2.8% against the $1,762.69 you were last sent, -1.4% against our own Oct 22 mark, and -0.6% against Thursday’s official close, with October -4.9% and the year -10.7%. 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 Saudi attacks turn a price move into an actual supply loss, which is the one thing that would make the energy sleeve matter more than everything else here; the Federal Reserve on October 27–28, with the ten-year now back below 5%; Eaton’s third-quarter results on November 3, the first hard number on the largest position here and the same day as the midterms; and the MSCI affected-company list on November 11, which touches the one MSTR share held here.

Portfolio Builder | Market Update | Friday, October 23, 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.