1Q26 Portfolio Review
After every quarter, I provide a review of the performance and positions of my two personal accounts (IBKR and Argentina). I think this provides readers with more context and transparency about the way I think and act as an investor myself. Most of the names for which I have positions have been covered in the blog. This article reviews 1Q26.
The article is organized by account, posting the historical returns, 1Q26 returns, sources of the quarterly returns, the changes in positions during the quarter, and finally, the ending positioning.
Before beginning, I wanted to thank all of Quipus Capital’s readers for your support, especially those who have upgraded monthly or yearly. The blog has more than 2,000 readers. Writing and researching for Quipus is a great pleasure.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the Blog are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product.
A note about the War
As noted in many previous reports, for some quarters, I have been concerned about the market’s frothiness, despite what seemed like compounding levels of external and internal conflict.
My long-term views are very similar to (and highly inspired by) those of Ray Dalio: we might be undergoing a very long reordering of and dispute for world power, which might have huge reverberations on financial markets.
Of course, the above constitutes simply a long-term framework, which I recognize could be completely wrong. Additionally, I could not cite any specific near-term catastrophic risk, and I also understand that the economy might be doing great, only not in the areas where I was looking.
Therefore, I only incrementally added some short positions in speculative names, bought SPY and ARKK puts, etc. More generally, I have maintained an increasing portion of cash uninvested for more than a year. Again, not out of a convinced permabear view but rather from a mix of bad vibes and simply not finding enough attractive options.
This quarter started showing signs of more generally shared worries even before the war started. The S&P 500 has been kind of flat since October 2025. Early in the year, we had the AI eats the world scare and the ‘bits vs atoms’ narrative. Again, nothing much, simply a turn of the general psychology towards a less optimistic state.
Now, we have the war. I am not even a newbie on warfare topics; I am very cognizant of the impact of Nebel des Krieges; and I don’t want to waste your time reading my biased opinions about the war. Suffice it to say that I don’t think it’s going well, I don’t think under most scenarios it is positive for the long-term power struggle mentioned above, and I am concerned about a potential huge supply impact on the world economy.
Given that, I am currently at a loss. It is increasingly harder not to concentrate on these global events as the main driver of any sectoral, industrial, or company-specific thesis.
On the one hand, I am way more worried than I was before. Does that mean I should sell everything or even get net short and wait? I have definitely been selling and adding to puts, not buying. Still, I recognize these events are really hard to predict, and that I have never done this kind of ‘tactical’ trading. I wonder if this time is really different and I should be worried, or if it’s just that I’m more psychologically predisposed to making a big thing out of this crisis, which is no different from other previous crises (Russia-Ukraine war, Liberation Day, the 12-day War), and that eventually, things will just work themselves out, either because the war is resolved (Nothing Ever Happens), or because the US is actually winning in the tactical and the strategical arena (Never bet against America).
I don’t know. For the time being, given that the market is clearly not pricing much doom or gloom, I am more comfortable being incrementally less long and more short, but just on the margin.
IBKR account 1Q26
Q1: 9.08%; 1 Year: 23.5%; Since inception (Jan22): 163% (CAGR 25.5%)
Historical returns
The first image below shows the performance of the account by month and quarter (“U91..” column) compared to three benchmarks (SPXTR, EFA, and VT). The second image shows the same comparison in chart form, ending in Q4.
Return sources for the quarter and changes in positions
The table below shows the returns and weights of each position in the account, and whether they remained open at quarter end. The heat map helps understand which positions generated returns more intuitively. The last table shows the transactions of the quarter.
This quarter has been very atypical, obviously because of the war, but also because of higher trading activity, in particular related to options.
The largest providers of returns were options, which added to 4.95% net, or more than half of the total returns of the quarter.
Of the options, the largest winners by far were options on Lyondell-Basel (LYB). At initiation, the position, December 2027 $50 Call options, which I bought for $10 at the beginning of January, was about 2% of the account. The objective of the options was to have exposure to a potential speculative recovery in chemicals BEFORE a fundamental recovery. As I had written in many olefin posts, I did not see very good fundamentals in the industry for the next two years. However, as I had seen with lithium, sometimes markets move faster than fundamentals, or even without them, and I considered that having this exposure was attractive from a speculative standpoint. Chemicals started performing very well before the war, with the ‘Atoms vs Bits’ trend. They exploded with the start of the war, because American olefins became the de facto global supplier in a very tight market. I sold 2/3 of my options for a 100% gain at $20, and the 1/3 remaining is worth more than $30 today. It is obviously extremely hard to predict what will happen with olefins in the long-term, because it requires predicting what will happen with the war. For the time being, I consider the remaining part of the position (still 2% of the account) to be a good hedge against further worsening in the war.
In a related situation, we have Alpek (ALPEKA) adding another 1.14% of return. Alpek is a Mexican/US PET and PE producer, which is not nearly as integrated as Lyondell and which suffers from a much worse margin position. The company also started to rally on the same grounds as Lyondell. I took the opportunity and sold half of that position, which still remains underwater. Alpek’s position is probably benefited from lower imports of PET/PE from China/MENA, but on the other hand, the margin and liquidity position of the company is much more precarious.
Continuing with options, I made almost 1.4% from two bearish option trades in SLV (Silver ETF) and EWY (South Korea ETF). At initiation, each represented ~1/1.5% of the account. These were very ‘simple’ in the thesis. Both ETFs had gone absolutely parabolic early in the year, and the put options (June 2027 $90 Put for SLV at $20 and January 2027 $125 Put for EWY at $15) required a 15/20% drop in price over a year or more to make money. I thought these were relatively lopsided bets given how parabolic and speculative the moves seemed. In the case of silver, the bubble burst before the war, and in the case of Korea, after the war started.
In terms of other speculative positions, I opened a long BNO (Brent futures ETF) on March 2nd at $38, when I saw videos on Twitter of drones hitting Middle Eastern infrastructure. It seemed a no-brainer given that the ETF had moved less than 10% since the start of the war. The position was originally ~2% of the account. I have also recently added a negligible position (less than 0.5%) on a Call on CANE (Sugar ETF).
The rest of the options are put options. Some, I had already commented on in my 4Q25 report (ARKK, SPY, TCX), related to general negative views on the market before the war started. This quarter, I added Puts on Banco Galicia (GGAL) for 1.5% of the account (January 2027 $50 Put), and added to SPY puts for another 1% of the account (SPY August 2026 $500 Put). In the case of GGAL, the logic is that Argentina has not made reforms to its financial, FX, and currency policies, and therefore will probably again face challenges. This might have changed with the war. In the case of SPY and ARKK, I have been adding short exposure as I believe the war is not going well. Finally, I bought puts on Venu Holding (VENU), a financially very complex stadium owner/developer, which I believed would have a challenging time financing itself. I bought July 2026 $7.5 puts for $1.5, for very little (~0.5% of the account), which I sold a little later for $3.7.
Because of the war, I sold most of the Japanese chemical positions I had. By quarter end, I owned Daishin Chemical (4629.T), but at the time of this publication, it has been sold. I managed to protect most of their returns because I sold just as the war broke out. I have (regretfully, given the impact of the war) not sold the Chinese chemical names I own.
Before the war, I added some Brazilian leveraged names, like Movida (MOVI3), Sendas Distribuidora (ASAIY), and Minerva (MRVSY), each for about 1% of the account. Whether the thesis for the lowering of rates in Brazil has changed because of the war is as hard to determine as what will happen to chemicals long-term.
I also added to a more ‘qualitative’ or ‘cheap but profitable’ Brazilian basket which includes BB Seguridade (BBSEY), another 1%, Pagseguro (PAGS), another 1%, and Suzano (SUZ), a little above 1%.
As commented on my series on trucking, I bought a “deep-value” play in trucking called Universal Holdings (ULH), for less than 1%.
Finally, in Europe, I initiated positions in Nomad Foods (NOMD), a challenged but potentially (now not so sure) cheap frozen food manufacturer, and on Stora Enso (STERV), a Swedish integrated forest industry company, on which I will have more to write about later. Each of the positions is about 1.x% of the account.
Final account allocations
Argentina account
Q1: 6.3%; Since inception (Oct20): 255% (CAGR 26%)
As always, I must warn that the returns on my Argentinian account are harder to calculate. My broker in Argentina provides only terrible and broken Excel reports in Argentinian pesos, requiring a lot of cleaning and conversions to USD.
Further, the investable universe is much smaller (only Argentinian stocks and a few hundred depositary shares from abroad), and I have an incentive to remain fully invested because of inflation or the risk of holding USD cash in a non-US jurisdiction.
Finally, the Argentinian account is now about 20% of the IBKR account, as I don’t add to it, but rather take from it to pay for expenses.
Still, at least for the quarter and the year, given that the positions and weights for the year have been reported for 4 quarters already, and that the account has minimal turnover, they are easier to confirm.
The quarter was very good, even after the effects of the war, for both Brazilian names and for EEM (Emerging Markets ETF), which are all I have had for quite some time in the Argentinian account.
In terms of sales, this quarter proceeded as previous ones until March: I sold some EEM (Emerging Markets ETF). As said in previous quarters, ‘EEM is a placeholder position, which I saw as carrying low risk because of its historically depressed prices. I have it until I can something to put the money into.’ I also sold my remaining position in Banco Santander Brasil (BSBR). I had to sell something to pay for expenses, and I am not as comfortable holding banks in Brazil anymore because of the credit cycle. I also sold half of my XP Inc (XP) position. In this case I’m growing frustrated with some management aspects of the company, and the lack of disclosure quality, although I still believe the discount is pretty large.
Then, on March 19th, I sold the whole EEM position, which was probably close to 50% of the account. There were two reasons.
First, I never paid much attention to EEM, thinking it was a truly emerging markets ETF with exposure to stuff like Brazil, Mexico, China, mostly commodities or cyclicals, etc. Only this quarter did I learn that EEM is also highly exposed to tech, semis, Taiwan, South Korea, Chinese hyperscalers, etc. I don’t know anything about those markets. Second, I was/am scared because of the war, as explained in the section on the war. Combining the two facts, exposure to sectors I have no idea about, and the risks of war, I thought it was time to let EEM go. I still don’t know where to put that money, given that the universe in the Argentinian account is smaller.
The final allocation is ~45% cash, 30% Lojas Renner (LREN3), 15% XP Inc (XP), and 10% Pagseguro (PAGS).