The Positioning — Newsflash #10

Week 10 | 25 April 2026

eek 5 · 13–20 March 2026

Three portfolios. Same starting positions. Different decisions. Real money logic.

The Scoreboard

Ten weeks in. All three portfolios up more than 16% from inception. The Benchmark leads, for the eighth time in ten weeks, by holding the full AMD position while the Algorithm and the Strategist were busy trimming it on the way up.

The irony of this week is hard to ignore. The Algorithm executed its take-profit rules flawlessly. The Strategist followed, if a little late. AMD then kept running to +68%. The passive portfolio, which has no take-profit rules and no mechanism to act on signals, held every share and collected every dollar of that gain.

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Doing nothing, again, produced the best result.

AMD — The Stock That Made Everyone Look Wrong

AMD has been the most instructive position in the experiment. It entered at $207. It is now at $347.81 — up 68% from entry. Every portfolio holds it. The divergence is in how much each portfolio holds.

Here is the complete trimming record across all three portfolios:

My own trade note on the 23 April trim tells the story honestly: “Missed the first alert when profit was at 37%. Saw the recent one and trimmed at 45% profit — Nice.”

It was nice. It was also the right rules-based decision at the time the signal fired. AMD then ran to +68%. The Benchmark, which has no rules, no signals, and no ability to act, made more money on AMD than either active approach.

The take-profit rule is designed to reduce risk and bank gains. It did exactly that. It also left money on the table. Whether that tradeoff is correct depends entirely on what AMD does next, and nobody knows what AMD does next.

NST — The Quarterly That Vindicated the Hold

On 22 April, Northern Star released its March 2026 quarterly report. This is what I held through -36% unrealised loss to see.

381,000 ounces of gold sold. AISC of A$2,709/oz. Free cash flow of A$301 million. Net cash of A$320 million after a A$347 million cash dividend payment. KCGM Mill Expansion on track for commissioning in early FY27. The $500 million on-market share buyback commenced 23 April, the day after the results.

“The March quarter demonstrated improved operational performance, with the Company forecast to deliver its revised FY26 production guidance of above 1.5Moz. Our share buy-back announcement during the quarter reflects confidence in the strength of our business, the structural uplift in cash generation expected from the ramp-up of the new Fimiston processing plant and the compelling value we see in our share price.” — Stuart Tonkin, Managing Director & CEO, Northern Star Resources

This is not a recovery story yet. NST is still sitting at -25.62% from my blended average cost. The position is deeply underwater and the platform’s signals have not turned bullish. But the fundamental case I held for, operational setback, not structural failure, was confirmed in the quarterly. The KCGM expansion is on track. The company is buying back its own stock at current prices because management believes it is mispriced.

I dismissed the stop-loss again on 18 April. The quarterly results arrived four days later. I’m holding.

The Algorithm exited NST in full on 13 April at A$23.37. NST is currently at A$21.86 below the Algorithm’s exit price. On that trade, the system was right. Whether it stays right depends on whether NST recovers from here. The experiment will track it either way.

The Benchmark holds NST at the original 185 shares, no mechanism to exit, no decision to make. It is sitting on the same unrealised loss and will benefit fully if the recovery comes.

The NST position after the quarterly. Still underwater. Still held. The thesis confirmed by management. The recovery, if it comes, still ahead.

The Algorithm — Right Trades, Wrong Outcome

The Algorithm has now executed 13 auto-trades since inception. This week it trimmed AMD twice more at - $279.84 and $293.85, both on take-profit signals, both correct by the rules. It also exited NST cleanly last week before the quarterly.

The result: $19,052 in cash sitting uninvested. The Algorithm has been systematically de-risking the portfolio as positions hit their targets. That cash represents profits banked from AMD and NST exits. It is waiting for the next signal to redeploy.

The Algorithm trails the Benchmark by $1,582 and the Strategist by $791. It has executed every rule perfectly. It is losing to a portfolio that has no rules.

This is the central paradox of the experiment at ten weeks: the more disciplined the approach, the further behind the passive portfolio it falls, in a market that has moved strongly in one direction. In a trending market, rules that reduce exposure reduce returns. The rules are right for managing risk. The market hasn’t rewarded risk management this week.

The Strategist — Late but Profitable

I trimmed AMD twice this week. The first trim on 18 April, 14 shares at $278.39 was late. The take-profit alert had fired the previous week when AMD was at +34%. I missed it during the launch. I caught the next one.

The second trim on 23 April, 14 shares at $303.46 I acted on in real time. My note: “Missed the first alert when profit was at 37%. Saw the recent one and trimmed at 45% profit — Nice.” Both trims were correct by the rules. Both left money on the table as AMD continued running.

I also trimmed TLX on 18 April, 57.8 shares at A$14.64 on an allocation breach. TLX has now been trimmed three times as it has continued to outperform. The Benchmark holds the original 806 shares and has collected every dollar of that gain untrimmed.

The Strategist now holds $8,627 in cash more than twice the starting cash position of $4,000. That cash came from the AMD and TLX trims. It is available to redeploy when the next signal fires.

Eight of ten weeks led by the passive portfolio. The Strategist led once. The Algorithm led once. Ten weeks of active management have left the Strategist $791 behind doing nothing. Ten weeks of automated signal execution have left the Algorithm $1,582 behind.

The gap is widening. Not because the active approaches are making bad decisions, they’re not. The AMD trims were correct. The NST stop-loss exit by the Algorithm was technically correct. The TLX rebalances were mechanically right. But the market has rewarded holding more than it has rewarded managing. In a sustained bull run on the positions this portfolio holds, passive wins. That may not always be true. It has been true for ten weeks.

What I’m Watching

AMD is the position I’m most interested in now. At +68% from entry it has well exceeded its original take-profit threshold. The Benchmark holds 56 shares. The Strategist holds 42. The Algorithm holds 27. Three different exposures to whatever AMD does next. If it pulls back, the Algorithm’s discipline looks prescient. If it keeps running, passive wins again.

NST. Always NST. The quarterly confirmed the thesis. The buyback started. The stock needs to recover from A$21.86 to A$29.39 my original entry to return to break-even. That is a 34% move from current prices. The KCGM expansion commissioning in early FY27 is the catalyst I’m waiting and hoping for !

The Algorithm’s $19,052 in cash. That’s the largest cash position in the experiment’s history. The system has been banking gains and waiting. The next confluence signal that fires for the Algorithm will be the most interesting trade of the experiment, it will tell us whether systematic signal-driven redeployment can recover the ground lost to the passive portfolio.

Ten weeks. One thesis. Three approaches. The honest answer is still: the simplest one is winning.

www.stackmotiveapp.com

The Positioning tracks model portfolios for educational purposes. This is not financial advice. I hold positions in everything discussed here. All figures in USD at current exchange rates. Do your own research.