Independent market analysis
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The 10-year JGB closed at 3.07% on 24 September 2026, the highest since 1996, while the BOJ's policy rate is 1.25%. The Bank still holds 47.9% of JGBs and is shrinking that stake, and a 10-year Treasury hedged into yen now yields 2.30%, below the JGB, as it has every day since June 2022.
The S&P 500 has had eleven bear markets since 1950. The median one took 24.5 months to regain its previous peak in price terms — but price ignores dividends and inflation. Count both, and the 2000 peak was not recovered until May 2013: one drawdown of nearly thirteen years, not two separate crashes.
Six biases measured on real accounts: trading frequency cost the most active US households 7.1 points a year, the disposition effect 3.4, switching holdings 3.2, and fund timing 1.2. The numbers are real, they come from different samples and decades, and adding them together — as most articles do — produces nonsense.
Backtrader tops almost every 2026 ranking of Python backtesting libraries. Its last commit was in April 2023. Here is what the registries say about all six, and the licence question nobody mentions.
The Kelly criterion says bet 10% per trade on a 55/45 edge — the growth-optimal fraction. Simulated over 200 trades, that same fraction produces a 50% peak-to-trough drawdown in 93% of runs, and ends below half the starting capital once in ten. Half Kelly keeps three-quarters of the growth and a fraction of the pain.
Run $10,000 plus $500 a month at 7% for 40 years and the calculator shows $1.48 million. Only 17% of that — $250,000 — is money you actually put in. The other 83% is growth compounding on growth, and by the final decade it does nearly all the work.
A hedge is insurance with a running premium, not a strategy. Rolling put protection on the S&P 500 has compounded at 6.64% a year since 1986, while simply holding 65% equities and 35% Treasury bills beat it by 0.6% a year with lower risk. What each instrument actually costs.
Rebalance about once a year, and only past a five-point drift. Rebalancing keeps risk at target; it does not reliably add return. What the research finds, what drift costs in drawdown, and how to do it without realising a gain.
The Federal Reserve is holding at 3.50%-3.75% while the US 10-year Treasury sits near 4.8% and the 30-year is at levels last seen in 2007. The policy rate and the bond market are two different prices set by two different mechanisms, and in 2026 they are moving apart. What duration and the term premium actually mean for a portfolio.
Investing a lump sum immediately beat a three-month phase-in 68% of the time in Vanguard research, costing about $500 of expected return per $100,000 to spread it out. Dollar-cost averaging is not the return-maximising choice; it is insurance against regret, and the premium is small but real.
