Our track record page said +380% average return across 87 positions against +117% for the S&P 500. Recomputed from the live ledger on 11 September 2026, those figures are +343.5% and +109.6%. We were overstating. And that was the smaller of the two problems, because every one of those 87 positions is still open and has been held for an average of 5.1 years — a fact the page never mentioned. This piece is the correction, the arithmetic, and the part that is actually useful to you: the three questions that let you check anybody’s track record in about two minutes.
| Claim on the page | What it said | What the ledger says | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average return per position | +380% | +343.5% | Overstated by ~37 points |
| S&P 500, matched windows | +117% | +109.6% | Overstated by ~7 points |
| Win rate | 83% | 82.8% (72 of 87) | Correct |
| Average holding period | not shown | 5.13 years | Missing entirely |
| Returns realised or open? | not shown | 87 of 87 still open | Missing entirely |
| Annualised return | not shown | +21.2% median a year | Missing entirely |
The mechanical cause of the first two rows is dull: the figures were computed in June 2026 and the page kept displaying them months later without a date attached. Prices moved, and our own holdings moved down, which is why our average fell from +380% to +343.5%. That explanation does not cover the benchmark row, and we originally wrote as though it did. The S&P 500 total-return index rose about 2.3% between the end of June 2026 and 11 September 2026, so drift cannot be why the matched-window S&P figure fell from +117% to +109.6%. The two figures were computed on different bases, and we are re-deriving which — we would rather say that than offer a cause that the price history contradicts. An outside reviewer caught this on 21 September 2026 by checking the index direction, which took them one lookup and us nothing at all, because we never checked.
Suppose we told you a delivery van had covered 400 miles. Impressive? You cannot know. Over an afternoon it is remarkable. Over four years it means the van barely left the yard. A distance without a time is not a speed, and a return without a holding period is not a rate of return. It is just a distance.
“+380% average return” is a distance. It says our positions, in total, since we bought them, are up that much. It does not say since when. The answer is an average of 5.13 years, with the oldest entry dating to 2013.
There is a second problem hiding underneath. None of those 87 positions has ever been closed. They are marked at today’s price and still held. So the cumulative figure does something quietly dishonest with time: it rises every year that the market rises, with no new decision from us at all. A firm that made a handful of good calls in 2021 and has done nothing since can watch its “average return” climb indefinitely, and advertise it as though it were evidence of ongoing skill. We were, without intending to, doing exactly that.
Annualising asks a different question: not “how far did it travel,” but “how fast.” It converts a total into a per-year rate, so a five-year hold and a one-year hold can finally be compared. Here is the whole ledger both ways.
| Group | n | Win rate | Cumulative | Avg hold | Annualised (mean) | Annualised (median) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All positions | 87 | 82.8% | +343.5% | 5.13 yr | +27.7%/yr | +21.2%/yr |
| HIGH conviction | 47 | 89.4% | +504.7% | 5.02 yr | +41.4%/yr | +32.1%/yr |
| MEDIUM conviction | 40 | 75.0% | +154.1% | 5.27 yr | +11.7%/yr | +14.0%/yr |
| S&P 500, matched | — | — | +109.6% | 5.13 yr | +15.0%/yr | — |
We report the median alongside the mean deliberately. The mean is pulled upward by a handful of enormous winners — one position is up more than 2,600% — and a single outlier can carry an average a long way. The median is the middle position: half did better, half did worse. When the two disagree, the median is usually the more honest description of a typical outcome.
Here is the genuinely useful thing the correction surfaced. The claim we actually care about is not “we pick good stocks.” It is “when we say HIGH conviction, that label carries information.” A rating system that does not separate outcomes is decoration.
On cumulative numbers the separation looked enormous — +504.7% against +154.1% — but some of that gap was simply time: if HIGH-conviction names happened to be bought earlier, they would show bigger totals for no better reason than a longer runway. Annualising strips that out, and the separation holds: +32.1% a year against +14.0%. The labels are doing real work.
That is a stronger claim than the one we were making, because it cannot be explained away by a calendar.
This failure mode is not ours alone. It is close to universal in financial marketing, and it survives because it is not a lie — every number involved is arithmetically true. Three questions catch nearly all of it, and none requires any maths beyond division.
If a return has no time attached, it is a distance, not a speed. Divide mentally: a 400% total over ten years is roughly 17% a year, which is good. The same 400% over three years is about 71% a year, which is extraordinary and probably unrepeatable. The same headline can describe a solid record or a fantasy, depending on a number they did not print.
Open positions are marked at today’s price and can drift back. Closed positions are finished facts. A record built entirely of open positions — ours is — is a record of decisions that have not fully resolved. Worse, as above, it keeps improving on its own in a rising market. Ask what share of the track record is realised. If the answer is “none,” the number is a snapshot of an unfinished experiment.
+21% a year is excellent against an index returning 15%, and catastrophic against one returning 30%. A benchmark is only meaningful when it is measured over exactly the same periods — the same entry dates, the same holding lengths. Any comparison that quietly uses a different window is not a comparison.
1. Over what period? 5.13 years average, entries 2013 to 2024. 2. Are the positions closed? No — 87 of 87 are open, so every return quoted is unrealised. 3. Compared with what? The S&P 500 over matched windows, +15.0% a year against our +21.2% median. Those are the three worst-sounding honest answers we can give, and we would rather you have them from us than find them yourself.
2026-09-21 (correction): The worked example said “the same 400% over two years is about 71% a year” → over three years. 400% total is 5x; over two years that is +123.6% a year, and 71.0% is exactly the three-year figure. The rate was right and the period was wrong — an arithmetic error inside the paragraph that teaches the reader to divide a return by its time, on the page about publishing a return without its time.
2026-09-21 (correction): We wrote that the stale figures flattered us because prices “moved down”. That explains our own average falling from +380% to +343.5%. It cannot explain the benchmark row: the S&P 500 total-return index rose ~2.3% between end-June and 11 September 2026, so the matched-window S&P figure could not have fallen from +117% to +109.6% through drift. We have said so above rather than leave a tidy cause that the price history contradicts.
2026-09-21 (fix): The link to the corrections log added earlier today pointed to ../corrections.html, which resolves outside this directory and does not exist. Every correction notice we published this morning linked to a dead page. Fixed on all four articles. Found by the same reviewer, in the same pass.
All three found during an outside review. Corrections log →
Changed on 11 September 2026:
Changed on 20 September 2026 — this item appeared under “still wrong” below until 21 September:
Still wrong, and stated here rather than quietly fixed one day:
Figures measured 11 September 2026 from the live 87-thesis ledger. Returns are unrealised and cumulative since entry unless explicitly labelled annualised. Annualised figures are computed per position and then averaged, never as a growth rate of the average. Past performance does not predict future results, and a five-year window that contains a historic bull market is a friendly window. Nothing here is financial advice.