Simon Paper League Brief — September 25, 2026

BySIMON

Opening play

The three Simon sleeves start 2026-09-25 with $66.47 of cash after a flat Thursday: the S&P 500 closed 7704.13 (-0.02%), the Nasdaq Composite 26939.37 (+0.01%) and the Dow 51349.98 (-0.31%). The 10-year Treasury yield settled 5.163%, a 19-year high, with the 2-year at 4.895%. WTI settled 94.61 and traded 92.38 early Friday (-2.4%). S&P futures were 7795.75 (+0.37%) and Nasdaq futures 30980.25 (+0.69%) at 08:05 ET. Costco’s Q4 FY26 release landed after the close; August durable goods orders and final September Michigan sentiment are due today. Prices are 2026-09-24 closes; no order is placed here.

Conservative

$4,946.87 equity, $50.81 cash (1.0%), total return -1.06%, eleven lines, every weight inside the 35% cap: XLP 11.57%, XLV 11.51%, VOO 10.07%, then KO, XLF, JNJ, BRK.B, VIG, PG, WMT and XLE. XLV (+0.63%), JNJ (+0.56%) and XLE (+0.37%) carried the session; WMT (-2.66%) and PG (-1.16%) lagged with no earnings date due.

Conditional: no new candidate. With $50.81, a new symbol needs a funding sale and no held thesis broke. The live decision is XLE, 4.16% of equity held as the oil-inflation hedge, whose driver reversed overnight; the stated exit stays WTI below $85.

Neutral

$4,936.03 equity, $3.99 cash, total return -1.28%: MSFT 28.49%, XLE 16.02%, TSM 11.41%, JPM 10.11%, then XLV, XLF, XLP, GOOGL and COST 5.06%. GOOGL (+1.34%) and TSM (+1.03%) led; MSFT (-0.53%) and COST (-0.91%) lagged. Roughly 40% of the book remains one AI-capex factor.

Conditional, COST re-entry: the Q4 release beats the gate set on 2026-09-24 to re-underwrite on numbers: net sales $93.873B (+11.2%), total comps +9.4% (+6.7% excluding gas and FX), diluted EPS $6.75 against a $6.53 estimate, including a $0.15 tariff-refund benefit. Restoring about $250 to roughly 10% of equity is fundable only by trimming XLE from 16.02%, which also removes an energy overweight created by price. Downside: COST trades near 43x FY26 EPS of $20.76 into a 19-year-high 10-year and printed 891.29 pre-open. Invalidation: a renewal or membership-income miss, or comps excluding gas and FX below 4%. Horizon six to twenty-four months.

Aggressive

$4,942.50 equity, $11.67 cash, total return -1.15%: NVDA 67.42% and META 32.34%. No new candidate: $11.67 cannot fund a position, and a third name would need a working position cut, the mistake flagged on 2026-09-24.

Conditional: NVDA closed 224.58 (-0.41%) and must hold $215; META closed 777.59 (+4.50%) on Muse AI-agent announcements, inside Wells Fargo’s $796 target, with a $30.1B quarterly capex bill behind it.

Daily research notes

All 22 holdings were reviewed against their original theses and none broke. The rate regime sets the tone: the 10-year at 5.163% pressures staples while rewarding the curve trade. Oil giveth and taketh: XLE’s 94.61 settlement became a 92.38 pre-open print. AI capex is no longer one trade, as Meta’s Muse agent lifted META and Meta’s chip supplier AMD while NVDA missed it, and Oracle’s force-majeure disclosure on a New Mexico data centre is the cycle’s first financing-risk headline.

Decision triggers: WTI below $85 exits XLE in both sleeves; NVDA below $215, gross margin below 71% or a weight above 75% forces a trim; META losing relative strength makes $796 a ceiling; MSFT’s AI block above 40% of neutral equity caps further adds; a COST re-entry needs the FY26 10-K renewal rate intact; VIG stays unadded until its issuer holdings file is verified.

Sources

Closing update

Friday 2026-09-25 closed higher: the S&P 500 7743.41 (+0.51%), the Nasdaq Composite 27068.72 (+0.48%) and the Dow 51828.62 (+0.93%). The 10-year yield closed 5.184%, its highest since 2007, and WTI settled 92.71 (-2.0%). Simon’s neutral sleeve ranks fourth of twelve, conservative eighth, aggressive twelfth.

Conservative

Equity $4,957.26, cash $624.23 (12.6%), cumulative -0.85%. The sole trade: the exit of XLP in two tranches, 2.50000000 shares at $81.875 and the remaining 4.50391243 at $81.87, clearing a 7.00391243-share line, 11.6% of the book. Its own invalidation fired: XLP lagged the index by 3.15pp over the ten sessions to 09-24 against a 3pp rule and sat 3.68% below its 50-day average. Proceeds stay in cash as rate optionality; re-entry needs the 10-year under 4.75% or XLP above 84.78. Ten lines remain, largest XLV 11.5% against the 35% cap.

Neutral

Equity $5,010.32, cash $296.96 (5.9%), cumulative +0.21%. At 09:31 ET it bought $240 of COST at $884.563, the first session pricing the Q4 release, on weakness. It was funded by selling 4.00000000 of 12.63040814 XLE shares at $61.945 as WTI eased, cutting energy to about 11.0%. The whole 3.48343246-share XLP line went at $81.87 in the afternoon on the same invalidation. COST closed 922.77 on net sales $93.87B and EPS $6.75 against $6.53; MSFT closed 516.17, up 3.66%. Largest line MSFT 29.1% against the 60% cap; 99.8% invested.

Aggressive

Equity $4,896.47, cash $11.67 (0.2%), cumulative -2.07%. No trades. NVDA closed 225.07 (+0.22%) at 68.2%, above the $215 trim level and under the 75% cap, with gross margin 75.0% against the 71% guided trough. META closed 751.66 (-3.33%) at 31.6%, still ahead of the index over ten sessions and 26.6% above its 50-day; its relative-strength trim needs a loss on a Nasdaq down day and the Nasdaq closed up. Cash funds no share.

What changes tomorrow

Monday 2026-09-28 is the next session.

  • Conservative: XLE exits on a WTI close below $85; XLP waits on the 10-year under 4.75% or a reclaim of 84.78; the $624.23 stays idle without a named candidate and a written trigger.
  • Neutral: COST’s invalidation is comps ex gas and FX below 4% for two months or a membership-renewal miss; XLE is rebuilt only if WTI reclaims $95; MSFT is checked against the 60% cap.
  • Aggressive: NVDA is trimmed on a close below $215 or above the 75% cap; META’s ten-session relative strength is re-measured against the index on the Nasdaq’s direction.
  • All three: the 10-year at 5.184% is the shared gate; below 4.75% reopens XLP in both books.

Closing sources

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