You could miss a great deal of what is happening in financial markets by watching only the major equity indexes.
Beneath those headline numbers, a powerful risk-off wave has been punishing some of the market’s most celebrated winners. Parts of the AI hardware and infrastructure complex have suffered particularly sharp reversals. Yet businesses that investors had avoided for months, and in some cases years, have begun attracting capital again. Selling and rotation are occurring together, making the apparent resilience of an index a poor guide to the experience of owning individual stocks.
Our latest Leaderboard offers a revealing view of that change.
It contains positions whose earlier gains have been reduced, completed trades whose exits look increasingly sensible, and a new arrival that regular readers had the opportunity to examine well before it reached the table.
The Leaderboard presents selected individual recommendation returns, not total Model Portfolio performance.
When we published our previous update in early September, precious metals and real assets had regained considerable strength. Junior gold miners and Altius Minerals were both approaching a 200% gain, while broader metals and mining exposure had returned to the Top 10.
Some of that advance has since been surrendered.
Junior miners and Altius now stand at approximately +144%, senior gold miners at +138%, and silver at +71%. XME, our broader metals and mining exposure, has left the Leaderboard altogether.
Those remain substantial gains from the original recommendations. They also represent meaningful setbacks from September. Both facts belong in the same account of our results.
A strong investment thesis does not spare its owner a difficult market. Nor does a royalty structure make a company immune to changes in commodity prices or the valuation investors are willing to pay. Our cyclical exposures have felt that pressure.
The experience also puts an earlier Model Portfolio decision in a more flattering light.
In May, we closed the remaining South Korean equities position through EWY. At that final exit, the recommendation showed a 238% total return from its original reference point, with partial profits already taken along the way. We explained the decision publicly: the semiconductor exposure that had helped make the investment so rewarding had become much more crowded, while price and sentiment had moved towards extremes.
We did not need to predict the date of the next sell-off. We needed to recognise that the opportunity we originally bought had changed.
The difficult part of a successful investment is often deciding when its success has made it less attractive.
That was the judgement behind the exit. It was also part of a broader effort to diversify our AI exposure beyond the most obvious beneficiaries of the infrastructure buildout. We continued looking for businesses that could benefit from applying the technology, including areas where enthusiasm had been replaced by fears of obsolescence. That repositioning was documented months before the latest turbulence.
We have not avoided every setback. But we entered this period with more to work with than a collection of crowded AI trades.
Biotechnology provides a particularly interesting example.
Roivant remains our strongest open recommendation, advancing from approximately +207% in September to +233%. Our broader biotechnology vehicle, SBIO, has left the Top 10, so the evidence does not support a sweeping claim that everything in the sector is working equally well.
Instead, a more recent individual investment case has earned its place.
Halozyme has entered the Leaderboard at +68%.
Readers of this publication should recognise the name. We introduced the company to paid subscribers in July’s VMF’s Security Selection, then published a substantial excerpt here on 31 July:
The attraction was a business that participates in the commercial success of medicines through its drug-delivery technology and associated royalties, without financing the full discovery process behind every treatment. That structure offered attractive cash-generation potential, alongside genuine risks involving partner products, intellectual property, competition and debt.
In September’s Leaderboard update, we pointed readers back towards that research as an example of the work developing below the Top 10. Now the company has arrived.
The sequence is worth more than another impressive percentage. Readers can examine what we wrote before the outcome, compare the original argument with subsequent developments, and judge the work for themselves.
A gain does not settle every question in an investment thesis. Indeed, it creates new ones about valuation, position size and how much opportunity remains. That continuing assessment is a substantial part of what subscribers are paying us to do.
Halozyme is also a useful illustration of the larger story unfolding across our Model Portfolios.
Below the Leaderboard, a sizeable group of individual companies that had been out of favour is beginning to improve both in absolute terms and relative to the wider market. Some recoveries remain tentative. Others are becoming harder to dismiss. Their business models and investment cases differ, but together they are expanding the opportunity set beyond the familiar leaders.
Will that rotation persist? Will the AI megatrend lose its grip on market leadership?
Those questions are related, but they need not have the same answer. AI can continue transforming the economy while investors reconsider which companies deserve to command the highest valuations. The businesses that captured the first wave of spending need not capture every subsequent wave of profits.
Equally, a rebound in neglected shares is not automatically the beginning of durable leadership. We want improving business evidence alongside improving prices, rather than a persuasive story attached to a brief recovery.
That is the work occupying us as we approach the final two months of 2026. We continue to monitor these developments daily, reassess our Model Portfolios and publish selected portions of the research here.
The next important change may become visible in individual companies well before it becomes obvious in the indexes... or earns a place in this Leaderboard.
To follow that work as it develops, including the valuations, position decisions and subsequent reassessments, become a paid subscriber to VMF Research.
Stay tuned.
Good investing!
Important Disclosure
This article was produced by VMF Research, Lda., under the responsibility of Vasco Marques de Freitas, CFA, CMT, Founder and Chief Executive Officer. It contains general investment research and market commentary, including discussion of investment recommendations. The production and dissemination of investment recommendations are subject to the applicable European market-abuse framework, including Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 and Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/958, and to supervision by the Comissão do Mercado de Valores Mobiliários (CMVM) in Portugal. Such supervision does not constitute regulatory approval or endorsement of this article, its recommendations or its performance presentation.
Leaderboard valuation date: 28 October 2026, using closing prices in the relevant markets, except for fully closed recommendations, which retain their historical exit reference prices.
The content is not personalised investment advice and has not been prepared by reference to any reader’s investment objectives, financial circumstances, knowledge, experience, liquidity requirements or tolerance for risk. It does not constitute portfolio management, order execution or an offer to transact in a financial instrument. This article also promotes VMF Research’s paid research publications.
The Leaderboard selectively presents the ten highest-returning recommendations across VMF Research’s paid publications, including fully closed recommendations retained for historical reference. It excludes other recommendations, including those that have generated losses, and should not be treated as representative of the complete recommendation record or the performance of any Model Portfolio. The returns are cumulative, not annualised, cover different holding periods and do not establish outperformance against a benchmark over a common measurement period. Entry into or departure from the Top 10 reflects relative ranking and does not, by itself, establish an improvement or deterioration in an investment’s fundamentals.
Unless otherwise stated, displayed returns are calculated from the original published reference price to the relevant closing reference price for positions remaining wholly or partially open, or to the final published exit reference price for fully closed positions. Returns include recorded cash distributions, are expressed in the instrument’s reference currency, and exclude taxes, transaction costs, custody charges, bid–ask spreads and currency-conversion effects.
Partial exits are identified in the status column but are not incorporated into the headline percentage as a blended return on the original allocation. The displayed figure therefore does not imply that the entire original position remained invested until the quoted price or realised that return. In particular, EWY’s reported 238% is the recommendation’s cumulative reference return at the final exit, not the blended return on all portions sold at different times.
Model Portfolios are illustrative research portfolios, not client accounts, investable funds or transactions executed by VMF Research. Displayed recommendation returns are not actual subscriber returns. Historical exits, subsequent price movements and successful recommendations do not establish that future decisions will be similarly effective.
Statements concerning market rotation, AI adoption, biotechnology, valuation and potential future Leaderboard entrants are interpretations or conditional investment hypotheses, not assurances. Price appreciation alone does not validate every component of an investment thesis. Linked research retains its original analysis date and should be read alongside its sources, methodologies, assumptions, investment horizon, risks and disclosures. Recommendations generally follow a medium- to long-term framework and are reviewed through monthly publications, with weekly or ad hoc updates where appropriate. The absence of an update should not be interpreted as confirmation that an earlier recommendation remains unchanged.
Disclosure of interests: at the time of preparing this article, legal entities controlled by Vasco Marques de Freitas hold long positions in Altius Minerals Corporation (ALS.TO) and ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK). These financial interests create potential conflicts that readers should consider when evaluating the commentary and Leaderboard. Holdings may change after the disclosure date. Their existence does not validate the analysis, reduce investment risk or imply suitability for any reader.
Equities, mining and commodity-related securities, biotechnology companies and innovation-focused ETFs can experience substantial volatility and losses. Relevant risks include commodity-price fluctuations, interest-rate sensitivity, technological disruption, clinical and regulatory setbacks, dependence on partner products, intellectual-property protection, competition and financial leverage. Royalty structures and diversification do not eliminate investment risk. Past performance, Model Portfolio results and forward-looking scenarios are not reliable indicators of future returns. Investors may lose some or all of their capital. Readers should conduct their own analysis and, where appropriate, consult an authorised financial intermediary or adviser.