Darwin Portfolio Review: 28 November 2025

Orchids, Botanic Gardens, Singapore

As November comes to a close, US Equities closed on a positive note despise low volume on a trade-shortened week ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday:

Based on the previous bullish channel that I had constructed many weeks/months ago we have bounced back into that channel and, at this point I would reconstruct my bullish channel to look more like like this:

that shows a bounce off the 89 (or more common 100) period EMA and a continuation of the bullish trend. We know that both technically and fundamentally we are probably overbought in this area and that the  6900 -7000 area (previous all-time highs/psycholigally importanf “round number” levels) is likely to provide strong resistance. – not to mention the potentially significant ~6950 Fibonacci extention level that falls in the middle of this range. So, I would not be expecting to see a strong (long-term) breakthrough from current price levels.

In terms of performance relative to other major asset classes, US equities fared well over the past week showing a ~3.7% return:

being outshone by only Crypto and (lower) Volatility. All major asset classes closed higher on the week with even the weakest (Real Estate) still showing ~2% gains.

Since I am “treading water” with the Darwin Portfolio, until I am comfortable with a new algorithm, I have not made any changes to the portfolio and remain ~50% invested that has resulted in the following performance:

i.e we are holding steady and in line with the benchmark AOA Fund.

Checking current rankings/recommendations from the Kipling worksheet we see the following picture:

where current holdings (SPLG/SPYM and EEM still retain their Hold recommendations with IAU and SVXY receiving “Buy” recommendations. IAU (Gold) has been an exceptionally good performer this year generating ~60% returns and SVXY (Inverse Volatility) has also generated returns in excess of 20% over the past 6 months. However, it is difficult to determine  future behaviour and the trend/momentum graphs look like this:

where we have recent crosses above the signal line but no strong conviction of a return to the longer term bullish trend following a short-term pullback.

I will continue to watch these graphs closely and maybe buy one or the other on convincing signs of a reversal – but I am not prepared to jump in just yet. Should equity markets pull back then IAU might be the ETF to benefit – but if we continue in a sideways consolidation pattern, than SVXY is likely to be a better choice. I am doubtful that both ETFs are likely to move strongly in the same direction based on their historical Beta relationships to US equities.