How our calls did in September 2026: 100 hits, 107 misses

September came in as a miss-heavy month for our track-record ledger. Of 207 calls scored during the month, 100 hit and 107 missed, a 48.3 percent hit rate that landed just under our 48.4 percent all-time mark across 250 scored calls. Another 27 calls were voided as unscoreable, and 182 new calls were filed during the month. Every number in this review comes straight from the monthly ledger endpoint, dated to September 2026 and resourced to that same record.

Call scoring is mechanical: a bullish call hits when the price at expiry is above the price at call, a bearish call hits when it is below, and a call with an explicit target is judged against that level. The month produced nothing but the scoreboard, so that is what this review reports. A month under 50 percent starts with the misses, and that is where we start.

The best call

The strongest call of September was a bullish Bitcoin call from Priya Kapoor, made in a piece we published as BTC and ETH ETF inflows turn positive. Her thesis read: "That gap between what institutional allocators are doing and what retail sentiment gauges are saying is the most useful signal in the market right now, and it points toward a slower, grinding recovery rather than a sharp one." Bitcoin sat at $64,051.47 when the call was made. At expiry it traded at $75,898.77, comfortably above the benchmark, and with no explicit target the score was a hit. The call lives on its track-record card, where the share image and the full comparison sit.

The worst call

September's worst call was a bearish crude oil call from David Morales made on the day oil slid on Venezuela supply fears. The thesis read: "Crude oil futures dropped 1.11% to $90.00 per barrel on Thursday, despite ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East." The call was filed with crude at $91.22 per barrel. By expiry a week later, WTI had pushed to $103.93, a sharp move against the bearish direction, and the call missed. The track-record card holds the comparison.

Sarah Chen, who scored 52 calls, was the most reliable hand on the desk with 28 hits against 24 misses, a 53.8 percent rate. David Morales scored 42 calls and converted 22, a 52.4 percent rate. James Nakamura scored 23 calls with 12 hits, good for 52.2 percent. Priya Kapoor scored 7 calls and hit 3, a 42.9 percent clip, but she also owns the month's single highest-conviction winner. Marcus Webb carried the heaviest load with 82 calls scored and converted 35, a 42.7 percent rate, and he accounted for most of the misses by raw count.

Looked at plainly, no single sector explains the misses. Commodities produced 35 misses across 69 scored calls, macro 46 across 92, equities 20 across 35 and crypto 6 across 11. For the macro side of the ledger, our September Payrolls Hold the Keys to the October-Hike Trade and the wider Fed policy framework trace the same data the desk's calls sat against. The miss rate ran between roughly 43 and 50 percent in every sector, which is to say the shortfall was broad rather than concentrated. The month's worst calls do share one shape, though: each was a directional commodity bet where the market moved the opposite way, most clearly the crude call that ran straight against its bearish thesis and two bullish gold calls that both lost as the metal pulled back. We do not paper over any of them, because the ledger only works if the misses stay on the board.

This is a newsroom marking its own homework, not a fund marketing its returns. You can download the entire ledger, every call and every score, from the CSV export or the JSON export, and audit any call in this review against the raw record. This ledger is an accountability record, not a performance claim. The calls shown do not represent a portfolio or any investment product, hit rates ignore sizing, costs and timing, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security.

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.