Too Early to Keep Score
Weekly review of the 🐿️'s BUSHY™ Multi Asset ETF Portfolio and live Acorn trade ideas. 2026, Week 1 (the first proper one).
Last night, subscription costs for new subscribers went up to US$45 per month (with a generous discount for annual subscribers that will reduce next week). Existing subscribers are grandfathered at their existing rates. Unsure of what is on offer behind the 🐿️ paywall? Hit the button below and check it out for free for 7 days!
The weekend note hit inboxes on Sunday morning and focused on the 🐿️’s overall positioning in Chinese equities. Link below in case you missed it.
With bank earnings front and center this week and with Donald Trump morphing into a one man stand-in for the same Consumer Finance Protection Bureau that he dismantled, do make sure to catch up on the conversation that Benny and I had on Thursday evening with Charlie Peabody.
Charlie, Founder of Portales Partners, is calling time on the recent big move in US financials and thinks that they lead the broader equity market lower (with ‘Big Tech’ already losing momentum). Full conversation 👇
Too Early to Keep Score
I always try not to read too much into market moves in the first several trading days of the year but Benny and I had a go at doing so in this week’s Sunday night live show. Check it out!
We discussed this weird set up we have experienced in the first 6 trading days of 2026. Notwithstanding a stronger dollar and higher energy prices, emerging market equities have outperformed the S&P 500 by 2.7%.
I remember placing my first ever PA trade as a junior banker. In those days you simply walked up to the relevant market maker in the dealing room with a ticket. No compliance approvals, no paperwork. My blue ticket that cold January 1995 morning in London was for some warrants exercisable into shares of the Templeton Emerging Markets Investment Trust. Here is the full story. It’s a fun one.
Here is a closer look at that chart I created for the show trying to determine how valuable a signal was given by a strong January for the full year for emerging markets. The slope of the trend line below was certainly ‘flattened’ by the MEGA year for EM in 2009 and by the 2020 data point that was skewed by China reacting to Covid much faster than the rest of the world.
Regular readers will no my bias here. Unlike Benny, I do believe that this dollar strength is likely to be short-lived and that we are looking at a continuation of EM outperformance in 2026 (hence the - probably overdue - increased China weighting within BUSHY™ I discussed in the weekend note). My eye is on the 2003 onwards analog.
BUSHY™ and Acorn Review
6 trading days in to the year is of course way too early to start keeping score. However, the rotation in markets has certainly suited the BUSHY™ portfolio.
International equity outperformance, continued strength in precious metals and a quiet (for now) fixed income market has seen the beta portfolio get off to a flying start versus its benchmark.