Darwin Portfolio Review: 21 November 2025

Botanic Gardens, Singapore

This week saw a pullback in US equities as the SPX (S&P 500 Index) closed ~2% lower than last week’s close:

Prices have dropped below the 50-period Exponential Moving Average (EMA) line and are heading towards the 6500 level, that was a prior area of resistance before prices broke through in September, and it now becomes an area of potential support as we pull back to possibly test the strength of this price level. EMAs are also showing crosses of shorter term averages below the longer term averages – further confirming a possible change in trend – although it is early days yet and Santa may still show up with a bag of goodies if interest in AI remains strong. However, short term indicators (MACD and RSI) are both signalling weakness – but without showing strong signs of being oversold (i.e. below the 30 level in the RSI) – and the pullback has come on the back of above-average volume. We will wait to see where this settles out.

Relative to other major asset classes US equities remain in the middle of the pack with Bonds showing the best performance and Crypto taking the biggest hit:

I have not been too active with the Darwin Portfolio as it has been partially hedged through the sale of Call Options on the 2 holdings (SPYM and EEM), that brought in a little over $500 in the past month, and I am still working on a new workbook/modified system to manage this portfolio in 2026.

Despite showing a negative ~5% Internal Rate of Return (IRR) since early October (when I lost all my tracking files) the portfolio is still up ~2% since inception

Volatility has remained at a modest 10.5% with the portfolio only ~50% invested (and the balance in T-Bills).

Performance looks like this:

slightly outperforming the benchmark AOA fund during this weak period – but not by any significant amount.

Checking on the rankings and recommendations we see little change:

and so I am unlikely to make any significant adjustments unless an obvious change occurs and we see deeper declines.