The beta-capped book

Every buy and sell, December 2013 to July 2026 · point-in-time SEC XBRL · generated 9 September 2026

The six gates, with one addition: a company is only eligible if its own trailing one-year beta is at or below 1.3. That single constraint pulls portfolio beta from 1.34 to 1.05 and holds it there in both halves of the sample.

UNIVERSE US operating companies, financials and real estate excluded
GATES    revenue growth 20–80%, net income > 0, free cash flow > 0,
         ROIC ≥ 10%, FCF conversion ≥ 50%, net debt ≤ 3× EBITDA
BETA     trailing one-year beta ≤ 1.30, measured only on prices before formation
PICK     the 25 highest composite scores that remain
HOLD     one quarter, equal weight, then rebuild

What it produced

PeriodReturnBetaVolatilitySharpe
full 2014–2518.50%1.0520.19%0.79
2014–201913.96%1.0514.87%0.77
2020–202522.82%1.0424.18%0.84
same rules, no beta cap17.50%1.3424.68%0.61

The beta control is the robust part. It delivers 1.05 and 1.04 in the two halves from starting points of 1.17 and 1.38, and volatility falls in both. Sharpe improves sharply in the early period and is unchanged in the late one, so the constraint never costs anything risk-adjusted. The return improvement is not robust — it is +6.2pp in the first half and −5.3pp in the second, which is a sign flip and should be ignored.

Trading activity

Formations 51Buys 580Sells 555 Mean names held 22.3Mean holding spell 2.2 quarters

The book is rebuilt from scratch every quarter, so a name persists only by re-qualifying on its own merits. Fewer than 25 names appear whenever the beta screen leaves a thinner eligible set than the gates alone would.

Longest-heldConsecutive quarters
VRTX10
HAS7
STMP7
HCCI7
AMZN6
SWBI6
MERC6
MED6

Every buy and sell

Step through the formations. Buys are companies entering the book that quarter; sells are companies that were held and no longer qualify. The table beneath is the resulting portfolio, with the trailing beta each name was screened on. Mean name beta is the average of those trailing figures, which is not the same thing as the book’s realised beta of 1.05 — the first is measured before formation, the second from what actually happened after.

Formed 2026-07-01Priced to 2026-09-04Held 25Cleared the gates 60Mean name beta 0.74Book £864,354£899,141

Bought — 12

CFANIPGMEDFIVEFICOLGNDFSSHUBSPNTGISRGGWRECOCO

Sold — 12

ADUSEQTFSLRHLHRMYKEQUNXTOPXSPRGSRDVTSDWLDN
TickerCompanySectorScoreBeta GrowthMarket capReturnStatus
CFCF INDUSTRIES HOLDINGS INCMaterials79.6-0.7421%$16.5bn+23.9%new
CODACODA OCTOPUS GROUP INCTechnology73.61.2923%$0.1bn+5.6%held
ANIPANI PHARMACEUTICALS INCHealthcare70.90.4937%$2.0bn-14.2%new
NBIXNEUROCRINE BIOSCIENCES INCHealthcare70.40.7329%$16.9bn-7.2%held
PTCPTC INCTechnology69.60.5328%$13.8bn+17.7%held
GMEDGLOBUS MEDICAL INCHealthcare68.90.9223%$10.3bn+3.1%new
CHECHEMED CORPHealthcare68.00.1639%$6.4bn+8.2%held
AMCRAMCOR PLCIndustrials66.60.8265%$20.2bn+3.5%held
FIVEFIVE BELOW INCConsumer Disc65.91.2126%$10.1bn+38.1%new
PAYSPAYSIGN INCTechnology65.60.8843%$0.5bn+57.1%held
VMDVIEMED HEALTHCARE INCHealthcare65.20.5423%$0.5bn-22.7%held
RELYREMITLY GLOBAL INCTechnology64.91.2827%$4.8bn+14.0%held
GRNDGRINDR INCTechnology62.40.6331%$2.8bn-2.8%held
LMBLIMBACH HOLDINGS INCIndustrials60.81.2222%$0.9bn-35.8%held
KTBKONTOOR BRANDS INCConsumer Disc59.80.9921%$4.6bn-12.2%held
FICOFAIR ISAAC CORPTechnology56.50.7223%$28.0bn-22.7%new
NOWSERVICENOW INCTechnology56.00.7322%$109.1bn+33.5%held
LGNDLIGAND PHARMACEUTICALS INCHealthcare55.70.8951%$6.2bn-8.5%new
FSSFEDERAL SIGNAL CORPConsumer Disc55.71.0923%$7.8bn-6.4%new
HUBSHUBSPOT INCTechnology54.90.7121%$9.6bn+31.9%new
KRYSKRYSTAL BIOTECH INCHealthcare54.10.8225%$10.9bn-3.6%held
PNTGPENNANT GROUP INCHealthcare54.10.4637%$1.3bn+1.7%new
ISRGINTUITIVE SURGICAL INCHealthcare52.80.8521%$142.5bn-8.9%new
GWREGUIDEWIRE SOFTWARE INCTechnology49.40.6125%$10.6bn+27.2%new
COCOVITA COCO COMPANY INCConsumer Staples48.40.5723%$3.9bn-20.1%new

Book value against the index

Both start at £100,000 on 31 December 2013.

Gross of dealing costs, FX, spread and tax. Prices are split- and dividend-adjusted closes; the universe is survivorship-free and delisted names are liquidated at their last traded price. Every fundamental figure is stamped to the date it first became public, and each trailing beta uses only prices before its formation date. The beta screen needs a year of prior prices, so the first two formations of 2014 draw on a thinner eligible set. Fifty-one quarterly formations is a small sample and none of these figures is significance-tested.