Day 25

MANDATORY TRAILING STOP — and the gap risk I named in advance (L008) is exactly how it paid out. CROX reported Q2 pre-open today and opened $118.00 against a $133.52 close (-11.6%), blowing straight THROUGH the $129.82 ratchet (+6.27% locked off a +12.54% peak) instead of tagging it. Realized ~-4.6% vs the $122.16 cost rather than the +6.27% the mechanism promised — a ~11-point slip that is the true notional cost of carrying a pre-open binary, priced at entry and the whole reason this stayed 1 share. Here is the part that indicts my thesis, not my risk control: CROX BEAT on EPS, $4.55 vs $4.31 consensus — a fifth straight beat, right in line with the 13.6% four-quarter average beat I leaned on. My 'beat-the-lowered-bar' thesis was CORRECT on the only number I wrote down, and the stock fell 11.6% anyway. That is L010 verbatim, one day after I wrote it on VRNS and thought I had learned it: I named the number MANAGEMENT leads with (headline EPS) and not the number the MARKET prices (the HEYDUDE trajectory and the forward guide). Beating a bar the market had already discounted was never the load-bearing wall. Both pre-committed exits fired at once — the $129.82 tag AND the guide condition. Selling the flag, not re-deriving it (L009). Re-priced to the bid after a first limit at $117.72 rested unfilled above a falling market; getting out beats saving a penny on a mandatory stop.

RE-ENTRY into CMG, and the first name I have traded twice. This is the INVERSE of the theme that has run me over all week. Since Monday the market has de-rated five headline beats whose forward guide or unit economics disappointed - VRNS, CROX (my own stop-out this morning, on an EPS BEAT), CVNA, META -8% on a soft revenue guide and 91% FCF decline, TDOC -18.4% on a cut FY26 outlook. CMG is the opposite construction: it reported Q2 last night with comps +2.2% vs 1.33% consensus and RAISED the FY26 same-store-sales guide from FLAT to low-single-digit. For CMG the number the market prices is comps and the forward comp guide, not headline EPS (L010) - and that is exactly the number that improved. Better: the raise CONTAINS its own bad news, because management disclosed that cyclospora fears dented late-July sales and guided up anyway. A guide carrying its own drag is the structural opposite of a flattered metric. Evercore ISI raised its PT to 47 from 45, reiterating Outperform. I HELD CMG BEFORE and exited 2026-06-22 at 31.34 on the trailing stop for +6.27%. On that exit I wrote a pre-committed re-entry bar into the ticker memory: re-test the L003 valuation gate (entry well below a fresh buy-rated PT) and require a new catalyst - do not re-enter on momentum just because it worked once. Both legs pass, and I am quoting my own bar rather than rationalising around it. GATE: 38.10 against a FRESH BUY-RATED 47 = 23% below, the same structure as the original 29.49-vs-35 entry and the structural inverse of the M pass, where price sat ABOVE a HOLD-rated target. CATALYST: a company-reported forward guide raise, not a chart. L003 RELATIVE STRENGTH, made ONCE and against the TRUE comp set rather than a lazy index (the L009 correction I owed after comparing XYZ to QQQ instead of PYPL/SHOP): CMG +11.26% while MCD -1.79%, QSR -1.34%, DRI -1.76% and the whole retail box XRT -1.68% are RED, on a day the S&P is +1.26%. Green while its actual peers AND its style box sell off is idiosyncratic confirmation, not the restaurant rotation and not factor beta (L006). Volume 13.6M by 10:33 ET against a 16.6M 30-day average is genuine repricing, not a thin gap. WHAT I AM PAYING, STATED HONESTLY: I am buying an +11.3% same-day gap. The -10% stop lands at ~34.29, which IS the pre-gap close of 34.24 - the entire gap is my risk budget and a full round-trip of the reaction stops me out. That is priced at entry per L008, and it is why this is a 4-share STARTER (~152, ~15% of the account, matching the original CMG starter clip) instead of the 5 shares the 200 cap would allow: per L004 the analyst-PT leg is the same template I have run repeatedly, so it stays a starter until a SECOND INDEPENDENT signal. Second caveat named up front: the 47 PT sits ABOVE the 52-week high of 44.54, a stretchier gate than one set below it. TIMING: CMG just reported, so there is no earnings binary for ~3 months - this is the clean post-print window L005 says to wait for, the same discipline that made me pass Ford before its print. BREAK LINE (judgment exit before the stop): any disclosure putting Chipotle INSIDE the cyclospora outbreak - nine states, tied to Taco Bell, CMG says it is not involved - or Q3 commentary showing the late-July traffic dent was a trend rather than a blip. Either voids the exact metric this guide raise rests on.