2026 2nd Half: Market Path and Portfolio Performance Update
Options Only Portfolio up 300% since inception
This is a brief update on where we stand today and where we believe we are headed for the remainder of 2026. Before reading, we recommend reviewing our previous three articles listed below, as they remain the primary resources for understanding what may lie ahead for the rest of 2026.
2026 a year for Swing Traders: Yen Carry Trade, Market Correction, New Fed Chair, Midterms published Dec 19, 2025.
Shiller P/E, Case for buying 2026 correction & 8700 SPX published Dec 30, 2025.
2026: Spring Is here, So is the Trade and Iran War published Apr 4, 2026
Market Update
Before we do the portfolio update (currently new all time high for the combined portfolio and since our inception, we are the best performing substack portfolio) we will do a quick market update.
Articles 1 and 2 are still very much in play from a broader perspective. In Article 2, we zoomed into a more specific timeframe and that portion did not play out exactly as expected. The market corrected into the spring largely as outlined in Article 1, but it did not bottom the way we anticipated in Article 3 once we entered the spring period.
In our view, the Iran war created an overcrowded bearish trade. The largest finance substack Citrini Research pushing the war trade (oil & gas, fertilizers, shipping etc) to his large subscriber case when our options were up 300 to 400% didn’t help our case…read “Don’t become exit liquidity following big accounts” section from the article 3 listed above. But doesn’t matter because we had epic catch up trades on the long side in the month of May and the combined portfolio total is at all time high now with lot more to come in June as you will see farther below in this article in the portfolio update section. The Trump administration, along with the Treasury Department and Secretary Bessent, went the extra mile to stabilize markets during the Iran conflict. As a result, instead of a proper bottoming process, the market experienced a historic squeeze that catapulted indexes to new all-time highs, led primarily by AI and semiconductor stocks.
The selling we saw during Q1 and into the spring was controlled and never became truly violent. Because of that, we believe there is still another correction ahead, one that could be considerably more aggressive and potentially mark the completion of the yen carry trade unwind. We encourage readers to revisit Article 1, as it contains several important points related to this view.
If that correction occurs, we believe semiconductors and the QQQ are likely to bear the brunt of the selling. Whether it begins around June OPEX week, which also coincides with important BOJ and FOMC meetings, or sometime afterward remains to be seen.
Since 2024, the market has consistently pulled back within two weeks to two months following each Bank of Japan rate hike including earlier this year in Q1. As discussed in Article 1, both our FOMC and BOJ projections have largely unfolded as expected. However, for the upcoming meeting, the outlook has shifted. Current expectations favor the Federal Reserve holding rates steady, while the BOJ is still expected to raise rates by 0.25%.
We believe that sometime around this period, or within 2 weeks to 2 months of Japan raising rates, semiconductor stocks will experience a meaningful pullback. Eventually, the broader indexes should also see another leg lower. That said, semis and the broader market may still have room to run in the near term, providing opportunities for investors who missed part of the rally to catch up as we did in epic form in the month of May.
As we have emphasized in the past, these public posts reflect our market views at the time they are written. Those views can and do change. We run a swing trading portfolio, and our positions evolve as market conditions evolve. Our objective is simple: make money in both rising and falling markets. Our true performance and result of the work is measured only by the performance of our portfolio’s where all entries and exits are posted live in the subscriber chat that can be audited/back tracked using the transaction log.
Despite the possibility of a correction, our longer-term outlook remains unchanged. We still believe SPX 8700 by October 2027. At the time we published article 2, many were barking that 8700 is irresponsible call but now they are all singing the same tune. If that view proves correct, any significant correction along the way is likely to present a buying opportunity. Once again please be advised that we are not holding any long term positions to reflect our 8700 view as our portfolios are swing trading portfolios that aims to catch max upside in shorter time frames during market rallies and as well as corrections.
Portfolio Performance
The views outlined in Article 3 influenced many of our trades after the Iran war began. Nearly every oil and gas position we accumulated moved significantly higher, and several options positions generated multiple-fold returns.
At the time, we remained bearish in the overall market and did not anticipate the vertical move that followed. We were waiting for the S&P 500 to reach 6200 before beginning to accumulate long positions in the market and take profit in the war trade, as we expected an eventual bottom between 5800 and 6000 in SPX. Instead, the market reversed just above 6300 and never looked back.
Our view in early April was that the rally was a dead-cat bounce. We expected oil prices to continue climbing and the conflict to escalate. We also believed that efforts were being made to prevent oil futures from moving significantly higher.
Although we took some profits in our energy positions, we left much of the gains on the table because we expected further upside. In several cases, positions that had been up 300% to 400% saw only partial profit-taking before eventually giving back much of those gains.
By May, it became increasingly clear that the market wanted to move substantially higher. At that point, we began building long positions in individual stocks while continuing to hold previously bought oil and gas names as a hedge and in same cases even buying more.
As a result, our Founding Options Portfolio remained relatively flat during April, while our regular-tier Best 25 Stocks and Options Portfolio moved into the red. Throughout that period, one message we consistently repeated to subscribers was not to panic. We remained confident that we would achieve our objectives by the one-year anniversary of the service, which we will discuss later in this article.
The catch-up trades on the long side during May have been exceptional. As a result, both portfolios have experienced significant gains and the combined value of both portfolio is at new all time high.
Founding Tier Options Only Portfolio:
Regular Tier Best 25 Holdings Stocks & Options Portfolio:
The Founding Tier Options-Only Portfolio was launched on July 9, 2025, while the Regular Tier Portfolio was launched on June 23, 2025. Both portfolios started with $100,000, with the primary goal of outperforming SPY by 1,000%.
We also set two additional milestone targets for fun: growing the Founding Tier Portfolio to $1 million and the Regular Tier Portfolio to $300,000.
Even during the April drawdown and period of underperformance, we repeatedly told subscribers that achieving all of these targets remained highly likely. Many subscribers were skeptical at the time, but after witnessing the performance in May, most have become believers.
When the market opens on Monday, it is highly likely that both portfolios will be showing even larger gains than those reflected in the screenshots above, which were taken before Friday’s close.
Across the two portfolios, we generated substantial gains in a number of positions, including MSFT, ADBE, AVGO, and IBM, to name a few of the larger winners. As we publish this article on Sunday night, many of these names are already trading higher in the overnight session.
As positions appreciated and several exceeded 1,000% returns, we took profits in stages while continuing to hold portions of the positions to participate in any further upside. This approach allowed us to lock in gains while still maintaining exposure to some of our strongest-performing trades.
We believe there is still some more long side trades and we plan to hit them until they stop working. Then we shall continue to make money after market corrects. Our next update will be at the 1 yea anniversary and we are confident we will hit all goals. As usual all transactions will be shared live in the subscribers chat and you can unlock them buy subscribing.
Since inception, we are probably the best-performing portfolio-focused Substacks available, with every entry and exit posted in real time and fully documented. Subscribers can independently verify our results through the transaction log, allowing every trade to be audited and tracked from start to finish.
Unfortunately, transparency is not always the norm in this industry. Many investment newsletters and Substacks hold dozens of positions at once and later highlight only the winners. Others publish bullish and bearish scenarios simultaneously and then emphasize whichever view ultimately proves correct. We have always tried to take a different approach by maintaining a transparent transaction record and allowing subscribers to judge our performance based on the complete history rather than selective examples.
Finally, nothing published on this platform should be considered financial advice. This is simply a place where we share our personal market views, portfolio activity, and trading decisions. You should conduct your own research and make your own investment decisions. We are not recommending that anyone buy or sell any security, and I cannot be held responsible for any losses or gains resulting from actions taken based on the content published here. Our market views change with market conditions.