Student Investor · Independent Research
Discipline, in public.
A public equity-research journal by Aydin Ali — a student investor documenting decisions, risks, and revisions in real time, governed by a written Investment Policy Statement and open about where it wasn't followed. Not a fund, not a firm — one person's practice, run on the record.
For First-Time Readers
The 3-minute version of this work
A short path through purpose, process, self-correction, and growth. The holdings and performance record are here too; this is the context that makes them worth reading.
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01
Why I built this
Avoiding impulsive decisions, separating thesis from outcome, and learning to revise beliefs in public — the short version, under 400 words.
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02
Investment Policy Statement
The written rules for sizing, sell discipline, and accountability — set before the moment of temptation, not after.
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03
One post-mortem
"What I Got Wrong" — a standing, dated admission of a call that missed, and the specific process flaw it exposed.
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04
Why this, why transfer
A direct crosswalk from NOVA coursework to this practice to what a four-year program actually pressure-tests — plus a full whitepaper as the receipt.
Data verified: July 31, 2026
A Note From Me
Wednesday the book fell 0.75% on a flat index day — ServiceNow's worst single session in months, SpaceX's fourth down day in two weeks, and, on the other side, CoreWeave, Talen, and Broadcom all quietly grinding higher. I wrote it up the same afternoon rather than waiting to see how the week ended. That's the actual point of this site: not a polished quarterly recap, but the honest, dated record of what I owned, why, and how it moved while I was still finding out.
— Aydin Ali, writing this from the same account I trade in
Macro & Rates Context
Data as of July 24, 2026 — CPI and unemployment refreshed via Massive Market Data (Fed Labor Market series); Fed Funds Rate unchanged since the last FOMC meeting; Treasury yields shown in the Yield Curve & Credit Monitor below; HY Credit Spread not yet re-verified this cycle (see note below)
Yield Curve & Credit Monitor
Top Performers
Highest return, by position
Ranked purely by real return since cost — not by conviction or position size. All five below happen to be Core-bucket names in or adjacent to the semiconductor/memory cycle; see Holdings for how each is actually sized and capped, and for how the leveraged and speculative-sleeve names have actually performed by comparison.
Event Risk
Upcoming Catalysts & Event Risks
Dated, real events with a direct line to the book — not a general market calendar.
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Jul 28–29, 2026
FOMC meeting & rate decision
Rate held at 3.50–3.75% since June; any signal on the September path directly affects the leveraged sleeve (NBIL) and the power/utilities names.
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Jul 29, 2026
META & VRT Q2 2026 earnings
Meta is the second-largest position in the book at 8.75%; Vertiv is the power/cooling equipment play on the same AI-datacenter buildout. Both under the Blackout Rule.
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Aug 5, 2026
SNDK fiscal Q4 & FY2026 earnings
The largest position in the book, currently flagged Under Review after its weight drifted back under the 10% cap on a price pullback, not a trim. This print is the real test of whether the NAND pricing thesis holds. Under the Blackout Rule.
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Aug 24, 2026
PANW & EL fiscal Q4 earnings
Palo Alto Networks and Estee Lauder — cybersecurity platformization and prestige-beauty demand, two of the least-correlated theses in the book, reporting the same day.
What I Publish
A standing body of work, dated and on the record
Everything here is written to a standard — not just what I own, but why, what could go wrong, and where I've already broken my own rules.
Monthly thesis
One company, laid out in full — what must be true, what breaks it, and how it's sized.
Performance vs. SPY
Time-weighted, with deposits stripped out. If the index wins, I say so.
"What I Got Wrong"
A standing post-mortem on the calls that missed, published in the open.
Position pages
One page per holding — valuation, a 52-week range, and a bull / base / bear case.
Opinion
My own argument, built from data already published here — clearly labeled as interpretation, not fact.
Compliance Ledger
Every IPS cap, checked live against the actual portfolio — including the caps that were breached and how each one actually got resolved.
Keep Reading
Four pieces that go deeper
Past the 3-minute version above: a full research memo, an admitted mistake, the written rules, and the data-driven case behind a live thesis.
SNDK — Sandisk Corp
The full standardized template: thesis statement, bull/bear risk-reward table, valuation logic, and catalyst — for the largest position in the book.
Post-MortemWhat I got wrong last month
Original thesis, what actually happened, and the specific process flaw it exposed — the accountability section every full letter carries.
Governing DocumentInvestment Policy Statement
The written rules for sizing, sell discipline, and accountability — set before the moment of temptation, not after.
Data-Driven AnalysisIs the AI trade too crowded?
Using the book's own correlation matrix, not narrative, to test — and partly correct — a claim made in an earlier letter.
July 2026 Strategy Tear Sheet
Position count, the full compliance record, concentration risk, and the latest post-mortem — one page, condensed from the full letter.
Performance Tracker
Real, daily-logged cumulative return against SPY, QQQ, and IWM — indexed, toggleable, and honest about the date tracking actually started.
Portfolio Composition
By bucket
As of the July 2026 letter, all 32 holdings split into five buckets under the Investment Policy Statement. Click through for the full table, allocation chart, and a page on every position.
Core / quality compounders — 63.7%
The anchor of the book: profitable or clear path-to-profit large & mid caps, spanning semiconductors, cybersecurity, cloud software, power/utilities, and consumer brands. If there's any real edge, it should show up here, not in the speculative names. SNDK, the largest position, is flagged Under Review after drifting back under its 10% cap on a price pullback rather than a trim.
See the full table →Index hedge — 18.4%
Broad-market and dividend ETFs, always held as ballast. Per the IPS: if the rest of the book can't beat this over time, the honest move is to own more of it and say so.
See the full table →Emerging growth — 8.6%
Smaller operating companies with real revenue, sized deliberately between the core holdings and the speculative sleeve — concentrated in AI/cloud infrastructure (CRWV, NBIS) and cloud software (DDOG, CRWD).
See the full table →Speculative sleeve — 6.5%
Micro-caps, story stocks, and pre-profit names, capped at 25% of invested capital. Comfortably under that cap — includes a small, deliberately limited position in SPCX (SpaceX), which only began public trading in June 2026.
See the full table →Leveraged / derivative — 2.8%
Leveraged & thematic ETFs, daily-reset. Under its 5% cap this month — though it grew slower than the rest of the book, not because I actively trimmed it. See the July letter for the honest version of that story.
Read the full writeup →Since Inception
Milestones
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2022
Started with $500
Saved earnings and gift money — the entire starting capital, no outside funding.
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Early 2026
Wrote the Investment Policy Statement
Rules set before the moment of temptation: position limits, sell discipline, a benchmark to be held to.
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July 2026
Linked Blossom verification
Holdings independently verified — the "Verified via Blossom" badge became literally true, not aspirational.
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July 2026
Published the first letter
"Portfolio Composition & Ongoing Risks" — the first full, dated positioning letter, on the record.
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July 2026
Grew from 15 to 32 positions
Added cybersecurity, cloud software, and power-generation names as the book diversified beyond its original semiconductor-heavy core — see the July letter for the full recount.
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July 2026
Started the News desk
Dated, sourced writeups on real market events touching the book, published the same day they happen — starting with the Nebius/Meta cloud story.
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Jul 23, 2026
Launched the Coverage Book
An institutional-format one-pager for all 32 positions — business description, thesis, bull/base/bear cases, and valuation, cross-linked to every existing position page.
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Next
First full monthly cycle
The next letter reports actual time-weighted performance vs. SPY — the first real test of the process, not just a snapshot.
Photo: Scott Beale, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
From the Desk
Latest news on the book
Same-day, sourced writeups on real market events touching the portfolio — not just monthly letters. Every article links the exact position affected and what it means for sizing and risk.
Citadel Buys $16B in AI Stocks From Aschenbrenner's Fund After a Forced Fire Sale
Leveraged AI hedge fund Situational Awareness LP was forced to sell to Citadel after margin calls. SanDisk and Nebius, two positions in this book, were named among the holdings sold.
July 31, 2026 · AMZN, AAPL, MU, SNDKAmazon Surges 15% on Blowout AWS Growth, Apple Falls 7% on Guidance
A dispersed Big Tech earnings day: Amazon's fastest AWS growth in 18 quarters against Apple's soft guidance, plus double-digit swings in Alphabet, Micron, and SanDisk.
July 28, 2026 · SNDK, MU, NBIS, CRWVMemory Chips Crater as a Chinese Rival's $487B IPO Threatens NAND Pricing
SanDisk fell 14.25% and Micron fell 8.85% on CXMT's IPO-driven competitive fears, extending a neocloud selloff in Nebius and CoreWeave.
Methodology
How this is built
The standard every page on this site is held to — not aspirational, just what's actually true about where the numbers come from.
Verified holdings
Every position, weight, and return is pulled from Blossom, a portfolio-tracking service linked directly to my brokerage — not self-reported.
Company fundamentals
Market cap, shares outstanding, and business descriptions come from Blossom and SEC filings. If a figure isn't available from a source I trust, the page says so instead of guessing.
Price & market data
Historical prices, 52-week ranges, and index comparisons come from Massive Market Data, cited on every chart and range bar where it appears.
Every rule break, reported
The Investment Policy Statement sets position caps before the fact. When a position drifts over one, it's disclosed in the next letter — not quietly resized off the record.
Questions Worth Answering
Before you read further
The questions I'd ask if I found this site cold.
Is this real money?
Yes. It started with $500 of saved earnings and gift money, and every position, weight, and return on this site is pulled from Blossom, a portfolio tracker linked directly to my brokerage — not typed in by hand and not a paper-trading account.
Why publish your own mistakes?
Because a track record that only shows the winners isn't a track record, it's marketing. The Portfolio Review & Retrospective section in every letter exists specifically to admit what didn't go as planned — that's the part that actually demonstrates discipline, not the returns.
Why does this site exist?
Because I genuinely like doing this. I read earnings transcripts and 10-Ks the way other people read box scores, and I got tired of that interest living only in a private spreadsheet where a bad call could be quietly rewritten after the fact. Writing every thesis down, dating it, and reporting on it later is what turned "I like researching stocks" into an actual practice instead of a hobby I only had to answer to myself for.
Who's actually behind this?
One person — Aydin Ali. There's no team, no fund, and no outside capital. The name is a banner for a personal research practice, not a firm, and the site says so plainly rather than implying otherwise.
How often is this actually updated?
A full letter roughly monthly, shorter interim notes when something real happens between letters, and dated news writeups tied to specific holdings as events occur — not a static page that quietly goes stale.
The Weekly Note
Follow the process, week by week
What moved in the book, what I'm reading, and any changes to the positions — the same honesty as the letters, more often. See exactly what an issue looks like before you sign up.