YTD - March 2026

capr

— 3 min read

March review

Up 19.02% for the month, bringing YTD returns to 76.78%.

A good month for the portfolio due to increased volatility, but the war in the Middle East made this month's performance particularly bittersweet. Being in Asia, I am also worried about flow on effects on the region as well as the global economy.

Some thoughts

  • The markets were slow to price in the impact of the war in certain areas, which worked in my favour.
  • I was a bit slow to reduce exposure to names which would be negatively impacted by fuel shortages (i.e. mining)
  • Gave up more than I should have while getting out of illiquid names at the start of the war - need to remember to prioritize liquidity. Buying cheap is no good if I end up giving up double my intended stop loss amount due to illiquidity
  • Towards the end of the month, I started to reduce exposure to names that would benefit from the war, as shorter term trading opportunities and market direction started to become less obvious. Price action was being driven by the US / Trump statements, even though to me, the market and economy had no reason to be bullish. I was ~45% cash at the end of the month.
  • Further out month's oil (e.g. CL Dec '26 in the low 70s) feels underpriced, but I'm not an oil expert, so will not be placing any bets here. Other parts of energy still seem underpriced, and probably still has room to run, but as always, I will be looking to trade these ideas as opposed to just buy and hold. I do this to (1) ensure a smooth equity curve, but more importantly (2) build up the muscle memory to close positions fast whenever in doubt, so that I am able to move fast and not get caught offside when there are big sell offs.
  • Having built up some confidence in my ability to control risk, I added funds to my trading account in early April, which increased my portfolio by approximately 60%.
    • While I try to focus on percentages, I have no doubt this will have some impact on my psychology. I will be taking my time in the next couple of months to ease into the increased account size.
    • I never actively monitored my drawdown levels, but will be starting to do so in order to better put the larger dollar drawdowns in context, so I don't panic and reduce exposure unnecessarily.

Misc data extracted from IBKR for first 3 months of 2026

2026 Q1 return chart
Monthly performance by Financial Instrument
Q1 Performance contribution by symbols (sorted by Financial Instrument)

Summary

Happy with my performance, but being extra mindful to not get ahead of myself. Given the volatile and unpredictable market, my main objective is to preserve capital and make small bets until higher probability / more obvious trades present themselves.

Read more