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- CSC Idea Post 7/17/26
A Quick Update for Our Idea Tier Subscribers
We know it's been a little while since our last update, and we wanted to take a moment to thank you for your continued support of the platform. Our goal has always been to provide an affordable, institutional-quality service for stock and options traders, and we hope you're finding real value in the work.
A few housekeeping items:
1) Platform Update
We're currently developing a dedicated platform to replace the Google Sheets tracker.
The new interface will allow us to:
Deliver real-time trade alerts directly from the platform.
Provide detailed trade rationales and supporting charts.
Better organize active and historical ideas.
Improve the overall user experience.
The platform is currently being tested, and we're targeting a launch by the end of the summer. We think this will be a meaningful upgrade for subscribers.
2) Adapting to This Year's Market
This year has been considerably more challenging than the past few years. Violent sector rotations, geopolitical curveballs, and extreme dispersion have created an environment where consistency has been much harder to achieve.
In many cases we've hit home runs, only to give back a meaningful portion of those gains when leadership abruptly changes.
It's important to recognize that these are the types of environments where market regimes shift. The key is sticking to the process while allowing the market to tell us what is and isn't working.
Every trade provides information.
When a setup doesn't behave as expected, it helps us identify the regime we're operating in.
Last year was characterized by persistent momentum. Patience was rewarded, and many option positions continued to trend well beyond our initial targets. It wasn't uncommon for trades to reach 4-6x after first doubling.
This year has been very different.
We're often correct on direction, but momentum fades before reaching our preferred return targets. In other cases, trades do reach our objectives, only to reverse violently shortly afterward, giving back much or all of the open profit.
As a result, we've been taking profits earlier in certain situations and are evaluating whether it makes sense to fully exit some positions once our objectives are achieved rather than holding for the outsized extensions that were common last year.
Markets evolve, and we must evolve with them.
Stay tuned.
3) Performance Perspective
Despite a much more difficult backdrop, we're pleased with how the platform has held up.
The Single Stock Book continues to produce strong gains.
The Options Book has given back some of last year's exceptional performance but remains only modestly below prior highs despite a much tougher trading environment.
The Long-Term Book has struggled this year after an outstanding 2025, but we remain constructive on its outlook into year-end.
One point we think is important to emphasize is how the platform should be evaluated.
Our service is designed to help subscribers grow their capital base—not to function as a fully invested portfolio or an index replacement.
Our ideas will rarely represent 100% portfolio exposure, so comparing the strategy directly against the S&P 500 or another benchmark can be misleading.
Instead, we believe Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is a much more meaningful way to measure the value generated by the service.
Example: Single Stock Book
Since inception (3.3 years), the Single Stock Book has generated an estimated ~270% annualized IRR after accounting for subscription costs.
Here's the math:
584 completed trades
Average profit: $288 per trade
Cumulative trading profits: $168,192
Total subscription cost: approximately $2,300 (prorated over 3.3 years)
Viewed as an investment, that's the equivalent of turning a $2,300 investment into roughly $168,000 over 3.3 years—an annualized compounded return of approximately 269%.
No performance metric is perfect, but we believe this framework better captures the economic value the platform can create than simply comparing it against a passive benchmark.
As always, we sincerely appreciate your trust and support. We remain committed to improving both the platform and the process, and we're excited about what we have planned over the coming months.
Options Book (Since Inception ~25 months)
261 completed trades
Average position size: $500
Average profit per trade: $131
Cumulative profits: $34,191
That equates to approximately 15.9x the initial capital deployed and an estimated 277% annualized compounded return over the period.
No performance metric is perfect, and every subscriber will have different position sizes and execution. These figures are intended to illustrate the economic value generated by the platform rather than serve as a formal performance presentation.
We believe this is a more appropriate way to evaluate the service than comparing it against a passive benchmark. Our objective has never been to replace an investor's portfolio—it has been to provide high-conviction ideas that can materially compound returns over time.
Long-Term Book
The Long-Term Book deserves a quick mention as well.
The book generated cumulative gains of approximately 1,300% last year. This year, it's down roughly 19%, but we don't view that as particularly concerning.
It's important to remember that this is not intended to be a complete long-term portfolio. In fact, many of the investments we personally own are not included in the page.
The purpose of the Long-Term Book is much narrower.
We're simply looking to identify high-quality companies when they become temporarily mispriced. When a stock we believe has exceptional long-term potential goes "on sale" and aligns with our macro and technical framework, we'll share it with subscribers.
Some ideas may take months—or even years—to fully play out. That's simply the nature of long-term investing.
As always, we appreciate your continued trust and support. We're committed to continually improving both the platform and the process, and we believe the enhancements coming later this summer will make the service even more valuable.
Thanks for reading, and with that, here's one more long-term idea we think is worth considering.
