The Slow Capitalist Edition 02 | Oil at $100, A CEO Who Put His Money Where His Mouth Is, And Adobe Being Adobe

It was a rough week.

Oil breached $100 a barrel for the first time this year. Inflation data came in hotter than expected. The US 10-year yield stayed pinned at 4.818% — its highest since late 2023. Tech and growth stocks took the worst of it. Risk-off was the only trade in town.

But here's the thing about noisy macro weeks: the real stories get buried underneath the headlines. And this week had three of them.

On Thursday morning, Uber's CEO Dara Khosrowshahi spent $10 million of his own money buying 141,000 shares of UBER stock at between $70.73 and $71.18 per share. Six days earlier his COO had already put in $5.3 million at $75.83. Between the two of them: $15 million of personal capital going into their own company's stock.

Let that sink in. Not options. Not a bonus plan. Open market purchases.

Executives sell their shares for all sorts of reasons — tax planning, diversification, estate planning. But they only buy for one reason. They think it's going higher.

Here's what makes this significant for us specifically. Months ago, when we were running the framework on the watchlist, we identified $69–$71 as the entry zone for UBER. Multi-timeframe support. A level the stock had defended repeatedly. Our limit order has been sitting there ever since.

Khosrowshahi's average purchase price on Thursday: $70.96.

He bought at our level. The same level. To the cent.

The fundamentals back it up. 42 of 51 analysts rate UBER a buy. Consensus price target is $101. The 3,300 job cuts improve margins structurally — fewer management layers, leaner operation. The Delivery Hero deal adds European scale. And WeRide just got Spain's first Level 4 autonomous vehicle permit, operating through the Uber app. The AV story isn't a threat to Uber. It's being built inside Uber.

At $71, with a CEO who just backed his conviction with $10 million of personal capital, UBER is the cleanest setup on our watchlist.

Our position: limit order at $71. Stop on a weekly close below $65. Target 1: $85. Target 2: $101.

Update: UBER's intraday low on Thursday was $71.04. Our order didn't fill. Four cents. The limit stays at $71 — we don't chase.

Adobe reported Thursday evening. Revenue of $6.76 billion — beat. EPS of $6.13 — beat. Full-year guidance raised for the third consecutive quarter. AI revenue growing 4x year-on-year. Firefly generations up 4x. Acrobat AI adoption up 3x.

Stock fell 2% in after-hours.

This is now three quarters in a row where Adobe has beaten estimates and raised guidance, and the market has sold the stock anyway. The narrative — that AI is going to destroy Adobe's business — has taken on a life of its own. It's become so embedded that the actual results no longer matter to most investors.

But look at what the results actually say.

A 45% operating margin is exceptional. AI revenue growing 4x is not what a company being disrupted looks like — it's what a company monetising disruption looks like. The freemium strategy is working. Raise guidance three quarters in a row and the business is fine.

There is one yellow flag worth naming. CEO Shantanu Narayen steps down December 1. Leadership transitions at major software companies always create uncertainty — the market has clearly priced this in. It's a watch item, not a sell signal.

At $252 after Friday's close — down nearly 16% from our entry — Adobe is trading at about 9.7x forward earnings. Its own ten-year average multiple is 44x. The market is pricing it as if the business is in terminal decline. The numbers say otherwise.

Our framework says hold. One partial trigger at most. Forward return well above the cash rate. Hard stop on a weekly close below $240. November 12 earnings is the decision gate.

The pattern of beat-and-fall is the signal, not the noise. The discipline is knowing your stop and holding while the narrative eventually catches up with the data.

When oil crosses $100 in an already rate-sensitive environment, things change.

Our framework has a macro trigger — Trigger 5 — that fires when two or more specific conditions hit simultaneously. This week the 10-year yield surged more than 50 basis points over the past month, and oil above $100 is reigniting inflation fears that push rates higher. Trigger 5 is fully active.

What does that mean in practice? Three things.

One — we treat all position size limits as 6-8%, not the usual 12%. No single position should be taking up too much real estate in this environment.

Two — the pre-agreed stop levels on every position become more important, not less. This is not the time to give positions extra rope.

Three — cash stays in cash unless the setup is exceptional. Right now our dry powder is earning close to 4.8% annually sitting in a US money market fund. In a T5 environment that's not dead money — that's patient capital waiting for its moment.

The one exception to rule three: an entry so compelling that the macro noise doesn't change the thesis. The UBER CEO spending $10 million at our limit price qualifies.

Not everything suffers when oil hits $100. Gold miners benefit — KGC is getting more interesting by the week. Nuclear energy benefits — CEG's thesis of clean baseload power for AI data centres gets stronger every time oil spikes. Healthcare and defence are largely immune. The pain falls on high-multiple growth names — which is exactly what we saw in the portfolio this week.

The diversification across KTOS, RKLB, NVO, and UNH provided real ballast this week. It doesn't feel necessary until it does.

Best performer this week: AAPL +3.56% on the foldable iPhone announcement. Analyst price targets should be revised upward — which would clear the existing FRF sell signal on the position.

Most interesting development: CRWV tested our $83 stop level earlier in the week and recovered. Friday's close: $88.99 — holding above the $88 trailing stop by less than a dollar. Not comfortable, but it held. The Nvidia strategic stake and $99.4B backlog continue to provide structural support. Stop remains at $88.

Worth watching: NVO closed the week down 13.81% from our entry — a significant deterioration from last week's -6.74%. SYK moved from -2.22% to -11.11% in a single week. Neither has hit a pre-agreed stop level and neither has two triggers firing. But both go on the close watch list for next week's exit check.

Exit triggers across all 21 positions: zero. The framework required two simultaneous triggers before action. Not one position hit that threshold in the middle of a macro selloff. The businesses are fine. The macro is noisy.

Micron (MU) earnings — September 21. The cheapest AI infrastructure name in the market on a forward PE basis. Consensus price target implies 81% upside. Our entry: 0.382 Fibonacci retracement at $776. If earnings beat and the stock moves toward that level, the setup is live. Not before.

UBER limit at $71. Still open. If it pulls back this week, it fills. If it runs, we missed it. We don't chase.

CRWV weekly close. Needs to hold $88 to keep the trailing stop intact. Watching Friday's candle.

KGC. Gold at all-time highs, oil at $100 — both are tailwinds for a gold miner with an investment-grade balance sheet. Still waiting for the candles to confirm a base after the 31% monthly run. Getting closer.

The market spent the week selling what looked expensive. Executives spent the week buying what they know is cheap.

Uber's CEO put $10 million of his own money in at $71. Adobe beat earnings for the third quarter in a row and the stock fell. Rocket Lab's backlog is up 137% year-on-year and the stock trades 59% below its high.

In every case, the business and the share price are telling completely different stories.

This is exactly what the framework is built for. When everything looks scary, you run the triggers. If the triggers don't fire, you sit tight. Zero exit signals across 21 positions in a macro selloff is the framework telling you something important: the noise is not the signal.

The businesses are fine.

Sit tight.

Nothing in this newsletter is financial advice. These are personal portfolio decisions documented transparently. Always do your own research.

Prices as at September 11, 2026 close. UBER limit order at $71 remains open — did not fill this week.