September 2026 FIRE Portfolio Update: All Time Highs Again

September 2026 was a slow churn to a new time high driven by a historic run up in the mega cap tech names. After the pullback we saw in June/July, August and September were the months for the market to catch up as investors one again remember that AI and mega cap Tech are the main players in town.

If you haven’t already read my posts before, I achieved Financial independence back in late 2020 with a portfolio of roughly $1.3m invested in mainly ETFs.

This post will be part of a monthly series of portfolio updates that summarizes how my portfolio performed, what trades I executed, what my monthly expenses were, and my general outlook on the economy/markets. This is by no means financial advice so do not look look at me for sage advice. I make stupid trades and make even worse losses quite frequently.

This is simply the performance of my portfolio and how it has performed on a month to month basis.

Monthly Highlights – September 2026

• Net worth is at $3.3m as of September 2026 Month end
• +$100k for the month
• In September, we left Spain (after 5 months) and finally returned to Bali
• No travel plans for the foreseeable future

Market Moves

What is in my portfolio?

My portfolio is quite simple and straight forward. I have my holdings primarily spread out between a few ETFs, fixed income, and various single name stocks.

ETFs

Again, my primary holdings are in a few ETFs. My primary holdings are in VTI, VGT, and VCR. I’ve always been a big proponent of big tech and have been heavily invested in the Nasdaq for over a decade. This has paid off very well for me given the massive bull market of the 2010s and is essentially what allowed me to FIRE so quickly.

I used to hold more dividend generating stocks as I was really into this type of investing at a period of time. I currently do not have many dividend specific ETFs as I prefer growth more than income. This kind of goes against the ethos of financial independence but I have enough money coming in from other sources that I don’t need to focus so much on consistent income from my investments.

Single name stocks

Some of the single name stocks I own are the following

• RDDT
• ANET
• GOOG
• NBIS
• RITM
• MU
• SNDK

These single name stocks make up less than 5% of my total portfolio. I tend to not buy much single name stocks anymore as there’s no point to take on unnecessary risks when I’m already so diversified with my ETFs.

Real Estate

I own real estate in Bali, Indonesia. While I’m not a big fan of real estate investment as an asset class, this is my personal home for my family. It’s hard to put a price tag on an amazing place to live that you can’t replicate in the rental market. As a home that my kids will make memories and grow up in, it’s no longer an asset that I need to profit from.

It’s hard to Mark to market the value of our home in Bali as the data is not so transparent. However, I believe that with the deal I was able to obtain, and the location of our villa, the value will at the very least hold on to what we paid for it. In addition, I took a margin loan against my portfolio to pay for the purchase. This means I didn’t sell any stock or incur any capital gains tax. I took a loan against my portfolio for the full amount of the purchase and pay an interest rate of 4.5% to Robinhood (my broker).

Fixed Income

I also purchased I-Bonds in 2022 at the height of inflation peak when I-Bonds were paying 9.5%. The rates have come down significantly since then as inflation itself has come down and I no longer bother with I-Bonds.

In the recent high interest rate environment, I had allocated a small portion of my portfolio to fixed income products, specifically purchasing treasury bills with 3-6 month expiry. These were paying out 5.5% which was a great guaranteed income generator. In recent months on the back of anticipated FED rate cuts, this rate was always going to come down which meant stocks should increase.

Well the FED cut rates for the first time since COVID in Sep 2024 which means treasury bill returns will be decreasing for the foreseeable future. My last treasury bill expired in July 2024 and that cash was used to buy the market. I suspect I will not buy any fixed income products for the foreseeable future.

Market Commentary – September 2026

September was a pretty strange month for the stock market. On the surface, there wasn’t much to get excited about. The S&P 500 finished the month down around 0.5%, while the Nasdaq gained roughly 2%. But underneath those headline numbers, there was a lot more going on. The Fed raised interest rates by 25 basis points to 3.75% to 4.00%, the first rate hike in three years, while the 10 year Treasury yield jumped more than 50 basis points to around 5.3%. Oil also continued to climb, adding another source of inflationary pressure. Normally, that combination would be a pretty rough environment for stocks. Instead, the Nasdaq continued pushing toward all time highs.

The biggest reason the market was able to shrug off higher rates was the continued strength in AI and technology earnings. I’ve been invested in the AI trade for the last year and September was definitely the month for Tech. Investors have become increasingly convinced that the AI boom isn’t just another speculative theme but a genuine capital spending cycle that is producing real revenue.

Companies are spending enormous amounts of money on GPUs, memory, networking equipment, data centers and power infrastructure, and that money is flowing directly into the earnings of companies across the semiconductor and technology supply chain. AMD was one of the month’s biggest stories, crossing the $1 trillion market capitalization mark as its shares surged. Nvidia, Broadcom, Micron and other AI related names also continued to benefit from the enormous spending cycle.

That helps explain why the market could continue making new highs even while interest rates were moving in the opposite direction. The rally was increasingly being driven by earnings growth rather than expectations for lower rates. In previous years, falling inflation and hopes for Fed cuts were a major part of the bull market story. September was almost the opposite. The Fed was hiking, long term bond yields were rising and oil was getting more expensive, yet investors were still willing to pay up for companies where earnings were growing quickly enough to justify the higher valuations.

The problem was that this strength was becoming increasingly concentrated. The Nasdaq 100 gained more than 3% during the month while the Russell 2000 fell more than 5%. The Dow also dropped more than 4%. Even within the S&P 500, the average stock looked considerably weaker than the index itself.

Market breadth charts showed the deterioration particularly well, with the S&P 500 advance/decline line falling below its 200 day moving average. At one point, more than 80% of S&P 500 companies were more than 10% below their individual 52 week highs. So while the S&P was sitting near a record, a surprisingly large number of individual stocks were already in fairly deep corrections.

The macro picture was also a little more complicated than the rate hike initially suggested. The Fed was clearly worried about inflation, but the economy itself was holding up surprisingly well. Second quarter GDP was revised higher, consumer spending remained relatively resilient and there were few signs of an imminent recession. By the end of the month, inflation data also came in a little better than expected, helping calm some of the fears around another immediate rate hike.

Generally, October has been a bad month seasonally and in particular Octobers before a midterm election. There are the conspiracy theories out there that Trump will use this month to hold a ceasefire with Iran, flood the markets with oil to lower prices, and juice up market returns in hopes to win those on the fringe. I suspect October will be a volatile month especially as we have Q3 earnings coming up.

Market Value of Portfolio

Here is a history of my portfolio value. As you can see, it’s moved in line with the markets as should be the case since most of my holdings are in ETFs that track the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.

In Sep 2025, I added my partner’s portfolio to the mix. I’ve avoided doing this for some time as this blog was mainly for my personal purposes but as we are a family now, it’s time to just aggregate everything for the blog purposes.

Trades executed for the month of September 2026

September was an active trading month for me, albeit not as active as August where there was considerably more volatility. September actually saw IVs drop across the board for many of the names I’ve been trading in and out of this entire year.

My risky memory stocks largely recovered and rallied hard in September approaching previous highs (albeit not breaking new highs).

My position in MU was sold at the end of the month right after earnings. I had a cost basis of around $850 and ultimately sold at $1075 for a nice profit overall.

Other than that, I continued buying dips in VGT albeit there were not many to be had in September.

Summary of stock and ETF purchases

Option Activity

Portfolio withdrawals and expenses

Withdrawals from my portfolio is an important part of the financial independence ethos. The 4% withdrawal rate rule is one of the main concepts of the FIRE movement which I try to adhere to. Generally, I prefer to sell from my portfolio when markets are near or at all time highs to capture, and only when I actually need the cash.

For the month of September 2026, we went back to our life in Bali after spending so many months in Spain. To say I’m happy to be back in Bali is an understatement. The lifestyle is just unmatched with so much emphasis on living healthy, eating well, and having social connections. With two young kids, having help is an absolute necessity and there is an abundance of nanny, maids, and daycares in Bali.

Bali is also way more affordable than living in Spain (albeit costs are going up). I never look at prices in Bali and we do pretty much anything we want.

We have no travel plans coming up as it’s a challenge to travel with such small kids.

Expenses for September 2026

In September, we finally returned to Bali after many months away in Spain. While I love visiting all the various countries in Europe, too long is too long. Southeast Asia is definitely where I prefer to spend more time in and life was immediately so much easier upon returning.

We did no traveling but simply settled back into the life in Bali. There were some one of costs like gym memberships for 3 months, air purifiers, a new iPhone, and other random expenses just to settle in. Gym memberships in Bali are notoriously expensive but you get the most beautiful gyms in the world in return.

Costs are generally much cheaper in Bali (although they are also going up) then in Barcelona where we spent the last few months.

Historically, I was accrual accounting our expenses but I’ve decided going forward I will cash account all our expenses which is much more realistic as far actual financial management goes. A lot of our expenses in Bali are paid for upfront for multiple months. Things like rent are paid upfront as well as the gym (discount for paying multiple months upfront).

In total, our expenses for the month are as follows:

Earnings for the month

While the portfolio is the main source of financial security, we still have income coming from other sources. After all, if you can make money doing something you love, why not?

In our case, we have income coming from my blog which I will detail the numbers in the next section. My partner works part time at a travel related company and also brings in income to help with the monthly expenses.

My blog generates money every month to the tune of $5k or more and I cover exactly how I earn money from blogging in other posts.

My September 2026 Blog Earnings

I always give a run down on my monthly blogging income on these monthly portfolio reports because this is about my blog after all. My blog generates quite a lot of money from many years of hard work that it is a huge supplement to my FIRE portfolio.

• Johnny Africa 2025 Blog earnings
• Johnny Africa 2024 Blog earnings
• Johnny Africa 2023 Blog earnings
• Johnny Africa 2022 Blog earnings

My full 2025 blog earnings report has finally been released via my post in the links above. I made a total of $75k from blogging in 2025 which was an absolute monstrous and record year.

I earn money from blogging primarily from ads and sponsorships. My ads are managed by Mediavine which I joined in May 2024. In addition to Mediavine advertisements, I also earn money from Affiliate programs, sponsorships, and travel planning. More details on these things in my how to make money blogging posts.

In September, my traffic numbers declined slightly as the spring and summer rush for travel content wanes. My Mediavine RPMs have increasingly stayed low as the overall ad market struggles I’m still debating moving from Mediavine to Raptive (another ad network) as they have been bombarding me with emails about how much who switch earn much higher RPMs. I don’t think it’s true but what do I have to lose?

Here is a breakdown of my monthly earnings.