Faithful in the hard years

TODAY'S MASS

✠ TODAY'S MASS

Thursday of the 7th Week of Easter · Year II https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052126.cfm

Feast: Sts. Christopher Magallanes, Priest, and Companions, Martyrs

First Reading — Acts 22:30; 23:6-11 Paul is brought before the Sanhedrin. He knows exactly what he is doing. He says: "I am a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees; I am on trial for hope in the resurrection of the dead." (Acts 23:6) The room divides immediately — Sadducees on one side, Pharisees on the other, each pulling Paul in opposite directions. It becomes so violent the tribune fears he will be torn to pieces and orders the soldiers to drag him out. That night, the Lord stands next to Paul in the cell and says:

"Take courage. For just as you have borne witness to my cause in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness in Rome." (Acts 23:11)

Not: things will go smoothly. Not: the path ahead is safe. Just: you have done it here. You will do it there. Take courage.

Gospel — John 17:20-26 Jesus finishes the prayer that will carry him through the arrest and trial and cross. He does not pray for himself. He prays for everyone who will ever believe because of the apostles' word:

"I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you." (John 17:20-21)

Then, near the end:

"Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me." (John 17:24)

And the final line of the prayer:

"I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them." (John 17:26)

The prayer is already in the past tense from where he stands. The unity he prays for is already accomplished in his intention. We are living inside a prayer that was spoken before we were born.

ST. CHRISTOPHER MAGALLANES — the man who set his jaw

✠ ST. CHRISTOPHER MAGALLANES — the man who set his jaw In 1926, the Mexican government passed the Calles Law. All foreign priests expelled. Catholic schools closed. Seminaries shuttered. Public worship banned. Priests who continued to minister were outlawed — hunted down, executed. Christopher Magallanes was a parish priest in Jalisco. For twenty years before the persecution, he had built a school, a farm cooperative, and a small hydro-electric plant for his rural parish. Not because it was easy. Because it was necessary, and he had decided to do it, and that was enough. When the Calles Law shuttered the official seminary, he didn't wait for conditions to improve. He built another one — in the mountains, in secret, running it clandestinely for two years while the state executed priests. That is not ordinary work. That is a man who set his jaw. He was arrested on May 21, 1927, while traveling to offer Mass. He had no weapons. He was shot without trial three days later. Before the soldiers fired, he distributed what little money he had to his executioners — as a gift, not a bribe. His last words: "I die innocent. I forgive with all my heart those responsible for my death, and I ask God that my blood may serve to unite my Mexican brothers." He was canonized by John Paul II on May 21, 2000. The feast falls on the day he was arrested.

Discipline is the most important thing in markets. Not intelligence — discipline. The reason most investors lose isn't that they're wrong about a company. It's that they can't hold still. They cut winners early. They let losers run. They move the stop when it gets close. They change the system every time it has a bad week. Magallanes didn't change the system. The government made it illegal to run a seminary. He ran it in the mountains. The government made it illegal to say Mass. He walked to the next village to say it anyway. He did the same thing every day — the disciplined thing, the convicted thing — in conditions designed to break him. That is the patron saint of anyone who has ever held a position through a volatile earnings night and not moved the stop.

UPPER ROOM — Day 7 of 9

✠ UPPER ROOM — Day 7 of 9 Pentecost is Sunday. Three more days. The disciples are still in the room. They have been there since Ascension Thursday. Nine days of prayer, no certainty about the form of what is coming, complete certainty that it will come. Day 7 is the deepest part of the waiting. The initial energy of "something is coming" has settled into something quieter. Not doubt — they have moved past that. Just the sustained effort of holding still when the habit is to move. Every long-term investor knows day 7. You have done the analysis. You have sized the position. The first few days of watching it trade are full of alertness. Then it settles. The business is working or it isn't, slowly. The market will discover it or it won't, on its own schedule. What you contribute now is staying out of your own way. Three more days.

MARKET

✠ MARKET $81.6 billion in revenue. 85% growth, year over year. NVIDIA reported Q1 FY2027 last night. EPS came in at $2.39 — Wall Street expected $1.78. That is a 34% beat on earnings per share. Revenue beat consensus by roughly $2.6 billion. Net income: $58.3 billion in a single quarter. This is not a company that is slowing down. Three things drove it. First, Blackwell. NVIDIA's new GPU architecture — the GB200 NVL72, which connects 72 chips into a single system — is ramping at a pace that is outrunning manufacturing capacity. Jensen Huang has said demand is "insane." That word, coming from him, is not marketing. It is a supply chain problem disguised as a compliment. Second, the hyperscalers. Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon committed $725 billion in AI infrastructure capex heading into 2025. Those commitments turned into purchase orders. NVIDIA is on the receiving end of every one of them. Data center revenue is approximately 90% of total sales. Third, the guidance. Q2 revenue guidance: $89.1 billion to $92.8 billion. The midpoint is $91 billion. That is another 12% sequential increase — on a base of $81.6 billion — in a single quarter. The growth is not decelerating. The stock closed May 20 at $223.47, up 1.3% on the session. That seems muted for a quarter like this. It isn't. The stock entered this print having already run from the mid-$180s in April. The market absorbed an extraordinary quarter and extraordinary guidance without flinching in either direction. At these levels, that steadiness is its own kind of confirmation. Our position entered at $225.32. We are $1.85 below entry. The stop at $211.80 is intact. The thesis — that NVIDIA is the infrastructure layer of the AI buildout and that the buildout is accelerating — just got confirmed at the largest scale yet. We hold. AMD repriced the entire thesis on the same day. Closed May 20 at $447.58, up $33.53 from May 19 — that is +8.4% in one session. Our AMD entry was $424.10. It is now +5.5% from entry, well above its stop. When NVIDIA removes the uncertainty, the whole sector moves. RKLB: $134.28 close, up +5.5% on the day. Our entry: $124.77. Now +7.6% from entry. DDOG: $212.24, down slightly from $215.15. Still +4.0% from our $204.00 entry.

New entry candidate: GS Goldman Sachs passed all seven gates on Wednesday's close. Score: 97. RS: 81. Sector: Financials (passes CST screen). GS broke out Wednesday on a 54% volume surge above its 50-day average. The base was tight — a VCP structure compressed over several weeks. Hurst exponent 0.70 — the stock is in a clearly trending state. ATR 2.2%, which is low, meaning the position can be sized larger with less dollar volatility. Kelly ½-fraction at score 97 is small by the formula (the system needs more trade data to recalibrate off priors), but the setup quality is real. If you were adding a position to a portfolio that already holds three names running well, GS entering on its breakout day with this setup profile would be consistent with the system. One note on timing: GS broke out yesterday. The optimal entry was Wednesday's session. Today it opens at or above the breakout level. Entries above the breakout level on the following day are higher-risk — the first-day surge may not hold. Watch whether it holds the breakout level on today's open before acting. Near-misses still building: | Symbol | RS | Gate Blocking | Notes | |--------|-----|--------------|-------| | RKLB | 99 | VCP | Already held — in portfolio | | AMD | 98 | VCP | Already held — in portfolio | | ASTS | 96 | VCP | Watching | | LUNR | 95 | VCP | Watching | All four pass Stage 2 and RS. The post-NVDA surge may have widened their bases rather than tightened them — higher prices, same setup. Watch for a consolidation before the VCP forms cleanly.

ENOCH PORTFOLIO

Every name runs through the USCCB Catholic screen before scoring.

✠ ENOCH PORTFOLIO Every name runs through the USCCB Catholic screen before scoring.

All positions above their hard stops. AMD and RKLB moved significantly on NVDA earnings day. NVDA held. No stops have been triggered.

New candidate: GS · Score 97 · RS 81 · broke out May 20 on volume · Financials (CST pass)

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Educational content only. Not investment advice. Publisher's Exemption (Lowe v. SEC, 472 U.S. 181, 1985).