Rutherford-Darwin Portfolio Review: 25 April 2025

Chepstow Castle, Wales

It was a relatively positive week in the US Equity markets with the SPX (S&P 500) closing ~4.6% higher than last week’s close:

As we can see from the above daily chart, the SPX closed almost exactly at an important potential resistance level of ~5520 that corresponds to a 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level from the October 2022 lows to the Feb 2025 highs. This level provided support in March 2025 on the initial pullback before later falling through this level to the 50% retracement level as tariff concerns played havock with investor confidence. This is more clearly seen on the weekly chart below:

Despite the significant correction that we have seen over the past ~2 months it is still not absolutely clear that we are now in a confirmed bear market since we are still within the boundaries of the long term (2020 – 2025) Bullish channel. We now wait to see whether the current level of prior support will now provide resistance to further recovery and whether we will drop back to retest the ~4800 support level. Either way, it is clear that we are currently in a period of high uncertainty that is causing exceptional volatility in the markets (~2.5x normal levels).

In terms of performance relative to other major asset classes:

US equities closed the week near the top of the list with Oil being the only loser.

The “Buy-and-Hold” Darwin portion of the portfolio continued it’s recovery and is now back close to break-even in the period since inception:

The “risk-free” portion of the portfolio continues to add dividends to the portfolio and the Options activity has smoothed out since cutting back on the number of positions held and changing to a more conservative “spread” position strategy. My only action this week was to roll the short Put leg of the VNQ  “Diagonal” spread up (in strike price) and out (in time) to bring in ~$180 credit from the sale of time premium.

Everything combined, the current picture looks like this: