Market snapshot · September 18, 2026 close
S&P 500 (SPY) $773.50 +1.55% Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) $741.47 +2.77% Dow (DIA) $519.78 +0.76% Russell 2000 (IWM) $285.58 +0.52% 10-Year Treasury (IEF) $91.15 +0.39% Crude Oil (USO) $148.16 −3.68% Gold (GLD) $398.38 −0.70% US Dollar Index (UUP) $28.48 +0.32% Volatility (VXX) $17.69 −0.39% Semiconductors (SMH) $596.03 +4.02% Silver (SLV) $59.63 −0.50% Emerging Markets (EEM) $68.83 +2.69% Bitcoin (BTC) $86,594.94 +6.70% Ethereum (ETH) $2,775.58 +4.95% S&P 500 (SPY) $773.50 +1.55% Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) $741.47 +2.77% Dow (DIA) $519.78 +0.76% Russell 2000 (IWM) $285.58 +0.52% 10-Year Treasury (IEF) $91.15 +0.39% Crude Oil (USO) $148.16 −3.68% Gold (GLD) $398.38 −0.70% US Dollar Index (UUP) $28.48 +0.32% Volatility (VXX) $17.69 −0.39% Semiconductors (SMH) $596.03 +4.02% Silver (SLV) $59.63 −0.50% Emerging Markets (EEM) $68.83 +2.69% Bitcoin (BTC) $86,594.94 +6.70% Ethereum (ETH) $2,775.58 +4.95%
AEACapital Research

Independent student research — not an investment firm or financial advice

A five-minute introduction

Start with the person,
then judge the work.

I built AEA to make my decisions harder to rationalize after the fact. This short route shows the origin, one piece of work, one mistake, and the student responsible for all of it.

No pitch deck. No victory lap. Just the clearest evidence.

SEP102026

Current desk note

The record is current enough to challenge.

Prices now run through the September 10 close. The newest audit found a live SNDK sizing breach and a private-company mark being misread as a daily move; both are visible in the record, not cleaned out of it.

September checkpointRead the current book Correction ledgerSee what changed

01 · Why this exists

I needed a way to tell a good decision from a lucky outcome.

I started in 2022 with $500 of saved earnings and gift money. I was a teenager buying on a feeling, then building the explanation after the price moved. Golf taught me the same lesson the expensive way: a lucky bounce does not make it a good swing.

So I made the reasoning public. Before a decision, I write what must be true, what would prove me wrong, and how much risk I can take. Afterward, I keep the original record visible. The goal is not to look right. It is to become harder to fool.

The rule that changed the projectThesis before outcome.

The remaining four minutes

One decision. One correction. One person.

Enough to judge the substance without touring the entire archive.

02 · 2 min

Flagship decision memo

See how a real thesis moves from source material to competing view, scenarios, sizing, and a decision.

Read the two-minute version → 03 · 1 min

What I got wrong

I promised a trim and did not make it. The market briefly hid the failure; on September 10 the position crossed the cap again. That distinction stays public.

Read the post-mortem → 04 · 1 min
A quiet library reading room with long study tables

Meet Aydin

A NOVA business student, a careful researcher, and a person still learning how much better ideas get when other people challenge them.

Meet the student behind AEA →

For the full record, continue to the portfolio, research library, or dated journal. For the longer account of how this started, see the About page and the 2022 Founding Note.