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S&P 500 (SPY) $748.62 +0.88% Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) $708.90 +1.85% Dow (DIA) $522.55 +0.89% Russell 2000 (IWM) $295.82 +1.20% 10-Year Treasury (IEF) $93.32 −0.23% Crude Oil (USO) $128.37 +2.28% Gold (GLD) $373.85 +1.70% US Dollar Index (UUP) $28.45 +0.23% Volatility (VXX) $21.29 −3.77% Semiconductors (SMH) $583.24 +4.37% Silver (SLV) $53.36 +4.67% Emerging Markets (EEM) $65.45 +2.97% Bitcoin (BTC) $66,470.13 +1.90% Ethereum (ETH) $1,922.88 +1.00% S&P 500 (SPY) $748.62 +0.88% Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) $708.90 +1.85% Dow (DIA) $522.55 +0.89% Russell 2000 (IWM) $295.82 +1.20% 10-Year Treasury (IEF) $93.32 −0.23% Crude Oil (USO) $128.37 +2.28% Gold (GLD) $373.85 +1.70% US Dollar Index (UUP) $28.45 +0.23% Volatility (VXX) $21.29 −3.77% Semiconductors (SMH) $583.24 +4.37% Silver (SLV) $53.36 +4.67% Emerging Markets (EEM) $65.45 +2.97% Bitcoin (BTC) $66,470.13 +1.90% Ethereum (ETH) $1,922.88 +1.00%
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July 2026 · Interim Note

SpaceX Drops Below My Cost Basis, and I’m Still Not Selling

July 20, 2026 · Not a full monthly letter — a short check-in between them

Monday was quiet for the index — the S&P 500 barely moved, down 0.16% — but loud for two names I actually own.

SpaceX (SPCX), one of my Spec-bucket positions (8 shares, $135 average cost), fell 3.34% to $119.85 after a scrubbed Starship test flight caused by an engine ignition failure; Musk says a retry with replacement engines is days away. That puts the position roughly 11% underwater on a mark basis, which isn’t a fun number to look at. But a scrubbed test isn’t new information about the thesis I actually hold — reusable-rocket unit economics, Starlink’s recurring revenue, and the AI-datacenter option value in Starmind — it’s a mechanical delay to one specific milestone. Full story on the News page.

Tempus AI (TEM), also Spec bucket, fell 7.74% to $48.41 — just below my $49.73 cost basis — after a law firm announced it’s investigating Tempus’s own acquisition of Personalis for potential conflicts of interest. That’s a governance question about a deal Tempus is doing, not new information about the durability of Tempus’s core diagnostics business.

Elsewhere in the book, Nebius (NBIS) and my leveraged NBIL sleeve both moved up (+2.76% and +5.68%) despite a bearish Meta-competition headline making the rounds the same day, and SanDisk, Micron, and Intel all ticked higher.

No trades today

Neither the SpaceX nor the Tempus move breaks a thesis I’ve written up, and a single red print on a Spec-bucket position is exactly the kind of noise the Blackout Rule and Holding Period exist to keep me from reacting to.

Sources: cited in full on the linked News article. Price data via Massive Market Data. This note is educational and reflects my personal views only. It is not investment advice.