Marked to Market — The Track Record

AUG 4, 2026 We corrected our own disclosure. Our public sleeve grid said “roughly 25–30% of Tier I Aggressive is defense names, above the 20–25% guideline.” Checking it against the books before this week’s rebalance: Tier I holds about 10% — inside the cap, and unchanged since the May audit. The 25–30% figure belongs to Hard Assets (~29%), where concentrated defense is the stated mandate. What happened: the flag was a misattribution, not a breach we failed to fix — the May tables carry the identical names and weights as today (PLTR 3.47, LMT 3.57, BA 2.65). We published a fault we did not have. Corrected on the sleeve grid with the old number left visible rather than deleted. Source: Which Sleeve Covers What · Flag 2 Wrong — ours

AUG 2, 2026 The AI credit tripwire. “When the chipmaker guarantees its biggest customer’s debts, that is vendor financing — spreads are the tripwire we watch, not the one we assume.” We own the cash flows, not the IOUs; if AI credit spreads widen while the stocks rally, we believe the spreads. The result so far: Nvidia in talks to backstop ~$250B of OpenAI data-center financing. Undecided — this row exists so you can hold us to it. Source: Commentary №2 · The Machines Got a Banker Open

JUL 2026 The midterm calendar play. De-risk into the Aug–Oct chop · defend the vote Nov 3 · re-risk the rally into 2027. Five scenarios published, a book mapped to each, and the cash reserve sized for the contested-count week. The result so far: the chop arrived on schedule — the Dow’s worst day of the summer (−1,153) landed August-adjacent, on a Fed hold. Grade comes after November 3. Source: The Play to 2027 · Five Roads to the Midterms Early · on track

JUL 2, 2026 Theme 5: AI is the new inflation. The house view — AI demand and sticky inflation are the same trade; the build-out soaks up chips, power and capital and keeps the Fed boxed in. What happened: on July 29, the FOMC’s hike camp made our argument — three dissents pointing up, citing the AI build-out as demand the economy can’t supply. The Fed adopted the thesis before we could be graded on it. Source: The Cycle & Themes · Three Dissents and a Thousand Points Right · so far

JUL 15, 2026 “At $84.91, oil’s risk premium looks full.” We wrote it in the letters; a fortnight later WTI ran $89.31 → $79.26 → $84.46 — a $10 round trip that made the case in both directions against a “full” premium. Self-graded in print on July 31. The sleeve behind it stayed right; the price call didn’t. Both things are true and both stay on this page. Source: The Week in Review, Part II Wrong

JUL 15, 2026 The bond sleeve at half our own audit’s recommendation. A deliberate call, disclosed the day we made it: bills over duration, because the long end had stopped catching equity drawdowns. What happened: July 29 — stocks fell 2.19% and the 30-year had its worst day in over a year (5.228%, highest since 2007). Duration didn’t catch; the 4%+ bills did. The cost, also disclosed: rate risk stays our thinnest square. Source: The Risk Atlas · Which Sleeve Covers What Right · so far

JUL 13–14, 2026 “Stop planning around cuts” — and the soft landing is over. When the July survey revised December CPI up to 3.4%, we called Regime Theme 3 (the rate-cut path) dead and told every plan to price 3%+, not 2%. What happened: zero cuts since; July 29 Fed hold with three dissents pointing up; inflation “stuck near 3% or higher” per the Fed’s own read; the question in the Journal flipped from how many cuts to how many hikes. Source: The Theme Tracker · The Expired Forecast Right · so far

JUL 10, 2026 The avoid list: no PARA/WBD. An $81 billion deal at 6.5× leverage with long bonds at 8.43% — “when a deal’s bonds yield 8.43% while its slide deck promises synergies, the bond market has graded the slideware.” Where it stands: twelve state attorneys general sued to block; the position remains refused; nothing about the credit has improved. Final grade waits on the deal. Source: The Risk Atlas · Credit Open

JUN–JUL 2026 Energy reinforced before the spike. Four consecutive editions added to CVX, XOM, COP on the thin-spare-capacity asymmetry — sized before the barrel moved, which is the only time sizing is worth anything. What happened: July 14 — WTI +9.42% in a session. July 29 — on the Dow’s 1,153-point day, the energy sleeve was the book’s only natural hedge that earned its keep. The floor-and-ceiling thesis (geopolitics under, spare capacity over) was stress-tested in public and held. Source: The Risk Atlas · Geopolitical · Part II Right

SPRING 2026 Defense is a core position, not a trade. “Budgets have never noticed a peace trade.” LMT, RTX, AVAV held at weight through every ceasefire headline. What happened: the Pentagon placed a $120 billion munitions restock order in the last week of July — backlog arithmetic, not sentiment. Source: The Arsenal File · The Sleeves Right

JAN 2026 → The metals sleeve as crisis hedge. WPM, RGLD, IAU were bought to protect the books on the bad days. They have now slept through two of them — a 2.6% slide on war news in July, and a down close on the Dow’s worst day of the summer. Where it stands: gold $4,034.70, roughly 24% below its January record. The year’s great disappointment. Held, sized, un-added-to — we don’t sell hedges at the bottom and we don’t average into failed tests. But bought-to-hedge and didn’t is a wrong, and it’s written here. Source: The Risk Atlas · Behavioral · The Hedge That Didn’t Work Wrong · so far

MAY 2026 → Oil has a floor made of geopolitics and a ceiling made of spare capacity. The standing framework behind the energy sleeve’s sizing — published in the letters since May. What happened: the July round trip ($89.31 with strikes on, $79.26 on talks, $84.46 at the close) bounced off both the floor and the ceiling inside five sessions. Source: The Week in Review, Part II Right

JUL 14, 2026 Financials overweight into higher-for-longer. The lender’s market call: a parked Fed plus a steep long end pays the plumbing regardless of which venue or deal wins. Where it stands: thesis intact — and a new watch item that cuts the other way: a whistleblower has the Fed and FinCEN reviewing Morgan Stanley’s wealth-division mortgage pressure. Conduct risk, not rate risk. On watch. Source: The Theme Tracker Right · so far

This page exists because of a grading we did to someone else. In Commentary №2 we lined up a decade of LPL Research’s year-end targets against the closes: 0-for-8 on every published range since 2018, twice in the wrong direction. The design was beautiful; the accountability wasn’t there — last year’s number quietly replaced by this year’s.

The only honest response to publishing that critique is to accept the same standard. So: our calls, our dates, our wrongs, in public, permanently. When we’re right, it’s here. When we’re wrong — the oil premium call, the gold sleeve — it’s here in the same type size.

A firm that only shows you the things it’s proud of is running marketing, not research. You can get that anywhere.

Two standing disclosures live alongside this ledger and predate it: the bond sleeve runs at roughly half our own audit’s recommendation, and the metals sleeve failed its job this year. Both are written up, with what we’re doing about each, on Which Sleeve Covers What — the page where our coverage grid flags its own thin squares.

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If you ever catch a claim on this site that isn’t on this ledger and should be — or a graded row the market has since overturned — say so on the next call. The fastest way to test an advisor is to ask for the list of things they got wrong. Ours is above, and it will never be empty, because nobody honest has an empty one.

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