No Trade Is a Trade

Dear Investors,

April was the quietest month we have had so far.

A quiet month can look like nothing from the outside. Inside the portfolio, it was a useful test. The scanners kept running. The rules kept filtering. The book kept paying us to wait.

We finished April with an average realized return of +0.36% across the accounts we manage. Since inception, the accounts we manage are up approximately +17.06% on average.

Because we manage capital in separate accounts rather than a pooled fund, each account can differ slightly based on size, cash flows, timing, fees, and execution.

That return is smaller than the first quarter. It should be. The market gave us less volatility premium after the March war spike, and most of the setups that appeared were thin. The system is supposed to make decisions. In April, many of those decisions were no.

The March Lockup Released

The first part of April was mostly about collecting from March.

Several positions that had been trapped underwater during the Iran volatility came back as fear cooled. Long-dated puts on memory, storage, and semiconductor equipment moved from uncomfortable marks to realized gains. The companies were still sound. Time was still on our side. Patience was an active decision.

There was no dramatic maneuver. No clever rescue trade. No roll to make the screen feel better. We held while the thesis was intact, then closed when the protocol gave us the exit.

This was boring in the right way. It was the job.

The Hedge Stack

April also gave us a clearer view of the hedge stack we started building in March.

The SPX position is permanent portfolio insurance. It is designed for the moment when individual company quality stops mattering because everything in the market begins moving together. The structure has a defined cost, a defined payoff zone, and cash settlement. It gives the portfolio a source of liquidity in the exact environment where a cash-secured put book is most exposed.

USO is different. It is time-limited and tied to a specific physical oil dislocation. The position exists because an oil shock can pressure equities while creating an independent source of payout in energy. That matters. If oil is the catalyst for a broader selloff, SPX and USO can work at the same time for different reasons.

In April, we extended the USO thesis into June. The May position remained alive, but the physical-market timeline had moved beyond one expiry. The June structure keeps the same barbell logic: a participation leg if oil rises materially, a central call-spread zone if the disruption becomes the base case, and a far-tail spread if the system genuinely breaks. Every leg is defined-risk or long premium. No margin. No short naked options.

This is still separate from the core premium-selling book. Workflow Capital remains a volatility premium strategy. The hedge stack exists so the core can keep operating when the market gets disorderly.

The Numbers

April's average managed account return was +0.36%. Since inception, the accounts we manage are up +17.06% on average.

The trading book contributed modestly. Cash carried most of the month. Idle capital was still earning interest while we waited for better opportunities. In a high-rate environment, patience has a yield. That is easy to overlook because interest is boring. Boring still counts.

April was a month where the portfolio made a little money, avoided forcing marginal trades, preserved capital, maintained the SPX hedge, and extended the USO window into June.

After a strong start to the year, that is exactly the kind of month I want the system to be capable of having.

What April taught us

April reinforced the lessons that matter most in a quiet market.

No trade is a trade. Passing can be the output of an active filter doing its job.

Hedges are infrastructure. SPX protects the broad equity book. USO gives us a defined-risk way to own a specific oil-shock outcome. They sit beside the core engine, and they make the whole portfolio more resilient.

Patience is easier to talk about after a good month than during a quiet one. April tested whether we could accept a small number while keeping the important optionality alive. We did.

The goal is a portfolio that is hard to kill, patient enough to wait, and disciplined enough to let silence be a valid answer.

Thank you for your continued trust. April was quiet. Quiet was correct.