14 Apr 13th April 2026

Markets Year to Date

And just like that it is as if the war in Iran isn’t happening. Stocks have now made a full recovery back to where they were before the US and Israel started firing missiles.

Well, last week was big. Buyers came out and hit everything that has been down all because of a 2 week ceasefire and the possibility of an agreement.

That tells you all you need to know. This market wants to go higher. It will jump on the slightest bit of good news.

This is the easiest way to read sentiment. Small good news leads to big buying means higher prices are coming.

I’m going to make a call here and say we have seen the low and prices move higher from here. Use any dip to buy.

The only thing to upset this scenario is Oil. But that has been stable for a few weeks. Even if it sits at $100 going forward, that isn’t enough to cause a recession.

We are not too far away from Q1 earnings results. The street is expecting the S&P500 companies to total $322. That is up from the start of the year when they were expecting $310. As stocks are not higher than the start of the year, this means they are cheaper than January 1st. Another reason to go out and buy.

I know there is a lot of appetite out there for SpaceX. I can’t understand why, but it seems anything with Elon involved makes people want to buy it. But I have found a way that you can get exposure pre-IPO.

Interesting Holding Companies

Holding companies can be quite interesting. Rather than operate their own business, they buy a range of other businesses. In a lot of ways, Berkshire Hathaway is a holding company.

The first one I want to introduce is Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust. SMT. It trades on the London stock exchange.

Here is a graph of the last few years of stock price movement.

SMT tries to buy exceptional public and private companies that are building the future of the global economy. Because some of the holdings are private, this gives you exposure to companies you otherwise could not own.

Their top 5 positions are

• SpaceX (15.3%)
• TSMC (5.7%)
• MercadoLibre (4.8%)
• ByteDance (4.1%)
• Amazon (4.0%)

Owning SMT means you effectively own these other companies and is a way to get exposure to SpaceX as it is their largest holding.

Brookfield Corporation. BN

This one trades on the NYSE. It owns and operates critical infrastructure and energy assets that power economies globally. Since 1993 the stock has compounded at 19.0% per year.

This last one is very interesting.

Constellation Software. CSU

CSU trades on the Toronto exchange (Canada). Since its IPO in 2006 it has compounded at +30% per year. It now owns over 1400 software companies and the business model is simple. Take the cash flow from owned companies and use it to buy more. Nearly all of these companies are private meaning you get exposure to otherwise unobtainable opportunities with Constellation.

The stock price has come pressure this year because of the AI story but it’s revenue growth is a thing of beauty.

Here is the stock price chart but it has a couple of bad data points so just ignore those.

Warning

Stock values can go down as well as up. It is possible to lose 100% of your investment in a stock. Any advice given by Capital 19 is general advice only and does not take your personal circumstances into account and might not be suitable for you.