The reason some of us think there will be further PM price weakness is because in 2008 the nadir in gold price coincided with the first major leg of the S&P 500 decline.
I want to see US stonks around 20-30% off ATHs before buying more PMs. Stonks being high tells me there is still too much liquidity in the system and it still needs to be slurped out.
When is the last time you heard American leaders speaking and writing this clearly and intelligently?
We’re being led almost exclusively by used car salesman and real estate agent types.
The naval blockade and escalation of war crimes in Lebanon by the genocidal Zionist regime are clear evidence of U.S. noncompliance with the ceasefire.
Every choice has a price, and the bill comes due. It will all fall into place.
@DonMiami3 The amount of endless bullshit and fraud is truly staggering. $3 trillion… wow.
If I wasn’t already out of US indices, I’d be getting out now. None of this is healthy or productive economic growth.
Honest question and not trying to be antagonistic or argumentative: why wouldn’t the refinery shut down operations and lay everyone off? Or, scale down operations and run parts of the refinery intermittently?
It looks like controlled shut downs of atmospheric distillation columns and fluid catalytic crackers take <1-3 days, and that even cold restarts take under 2 weeks. I read (current tense) that distillation columns can remain ready for a much faster hot restart or even continuous operation if the distillates are simply recycled through the closed system.
I’m putting my amateur chemical engineer hat on.👷♂️
If the problem is I have less of the heavy crude oil that my plant is used to getting, and jet fuel and gasoline prices are high, I would distill those out, and then wait to crack the heavy stuff until enough of it had accumulated to justify running the cracker again. This seems an obvious first step unless I’m missing something.
@calvinfroedge@OuncesApp Btw one of my dreams is to pick up some oil and gas MLPs in my IRA at deep discounts. Been waiting to do that for 5 years, should have done it during covid. 🤦♂️
I sympathize greatly with this post. I had SPY puts (LEAPs) going into the rally and things were feeling great going down to 6300 handle, then bam wtf?
I had to adjust my thesis. Something that I couldn’t predict or explain is keeping stonks up. However, $ITB puts are working alright, and financials and retail remain weak against the broader market.
A similar thing seems to be happening with oil. On the face of it, coordinated SPR releases are minimizing the spike — got it. Once the SPR runs out or low, there should be a dramatic reversal. How does one calculate that, and will it necessarily take Brent or WTI back above the recent spike of 120-130? I’m not so sure… another force will be at play then and may be at play now — demand destruction.
Stick with me because it’s material to the oil bull thesis (I have no trading positions in oil). I’m not just using the phrase as a talking point but seeking to truly understand it. When you look at inflation charts up close, as @mike_maloney points out in his documentary, there are waves of inflation followed by deflation followed by further inflation, and so on. What could this mean?
One explanation is the emergence of inflation in the economy itself causes a contraction of spending and investment activity. Combine this with an oil shock, which is technically not inflationary (but some might call cost push inflation), and it is possible that spending and investment unwind dramatically — perhaps so dramatically that oil demand offsets the drop in oil supply.
I understand that if 20% of oil output is taken off market, overall the input costs of businesses will rise 25% to reapproximate equilibrium. Any of these costs which cannot be passed to the consumer necessarily will compress margins. Businesses with 25% could see profits go to zero, 5% margin businesses could see profits go to -20%, and so on.
What if this causes many businesses to simply shut down, or downsize and limit operations to core competencies and profit centers? What if one of the reasons they cannot pass the input costs to consumers is because consumers are doing the same — voluntarily or not?
If at play, could we see these factors combine to (temporarily) drive prices of many commodities down?
Looking at 1973-4 and 2008-9 time periods, not identical but in some ways analogous because they represent weak economies stimulated by inflation, commodities including oil spiked in dollar price and that spike was quickly reversed as the economy went into a bad recession.
Therefore even as a hard money, hard commodity guy, I can see a future where commodities suffer significant drawdowns. In fact I’ve been overly concerned about this for about 4 years, as I’ve waited for recession to obviously materialize.
My concern for the oil bears is that their thesis will be materially right, and in fact the supply will be cut off dramatically and in a destabilizing way — but demand will be cut off even faster or around as fast, suppressing oil prices.
I can imagine situations where people regularly use ride shares to save commute costs, adjust thermostats 10 degrees, and share housing and bedrooms to save on energy and housing costs.
So.. what if consumers cut their energy use by 35%, entirely offsetting the production decline, not because they want to but because they have to?
The only way the American middle and lower class can win this game waged by the central bank warmongers is not to play. Extreme asceticism and austerity can carry the day.
I sympathize greatly with this post. I had SPY puts (LEAPs) going into the rally and things were feeling great going down to 6300 handle, then bam wtf?
I had to adjust my thesis. Something that I couldn’t predict or explain is keeping stonks up. However, $ITB puts are working alright, and financials and retail remain weak against the broader market.
A similar thing seems to be happening with oil. On the face of it, coordinated SPR releases are minimizing the spike — got it. Once the SPR runs out or low, there should be a dramatic reversal. How does one calculate that, and will it necessarily take Brent or WTI back above the recent spike of 120-130? I’m not so sure… another force will be at play then and may be at play now — demand destruction.
Stick with me because it’s material to the oil bull thesis (I have no trading positions in oil). I’m not just using the phrase as a talking point but seeking to truly understand it. When you look at inflation charts up close, as @mike_maloney points out in his documentary, there are waves of inflation followed by deflation followed by further inflation, and so on. What could this mean?
One explanation is the emergence of inflation in the economy itself causes a contraction of spending and investment activity. Combine this with an oil shock, which is technically not inflationary (but some might call cost push inflation), and it is possible that spending and investment unwind dramatically — perhaps so dramatically that oil demand offsets the drop in oil supply.
I understand that if 20% of oil output is taken off market, overall the input costs of businesses will rise 25% to reapproximate equilibrium. Any of these costs which cannot be passed to the consumer necessarily will compress margins. Businesses with 25% could see profits go to zero, 5% margin businesses could see profits go to -20%, and so on.
What if this causes many businesses to simply shut down, or downsize and limit operations to core competencies and profit centers? What if one of the reasons they cannot pass the input costs to consumers is because consumers are doing the same — voluntarily or not?
If at play, could we see these factors combine to (temporarily) drive prices of many commodities down?
Looking at 1973-4 and 2008-9 time periods, not identical but in some ways analogous because they represent weak economies stimulated by inflation, commodities including oil spiked in dollar price and that spike was quickly reversed as the economy went into a bad recession.
Therefore even as a hard money, hard commodity guy, I can see a future where commodities suffer significant drawdowns. In fact I’ve been overly concerned about this for about 4 years, as I’ve waited for recession to obviously materialize.
My concern for the oil bears is that their thesis will be materially right, and in fact the supply will be cut off dramatically and in a destabilizing way — but demand will be cut off even faster or around as fast, suppressing oil prices.
I can imagine situations where people regularly use ride shares to save commute costs, adjust thermostats 10 degrees, and share housing and bedrooms to save on energy and housing costs.
So.. what if consumers cut their energy use by 35%, entirely offsetting the production decline, not because they want to but because they have to?
The only way the American middle and lower class can win this game waged by the central bank warmongers is not to play. Extreme asceticism and austerity can carry the day.
I think anyone rooted in rationality, logic, and sense has been struggling the past 5 years. Not necessarily financially but psychologically.
The world is on a collective acid trip or drunk off their tits and a few people are looking around going “what the actual fuck?”
We’re also sensing what historically happens during these times — a swift and dramatic set of changes that force society to a better equilibrium, or into anarchy and despotism. There is a great deal to be concerned about and much to keep an eye on, even if the only aim is to keep afloat on a little buoy. More, if the aim is to accomplish more.
@LeadingReport@OuncesApp He won’t tell us which sociopaths and predators looted America and fucked children, and we’re going to trust him to count the gold? Lmao hardcore gfy on that one.
The immediate impulse might be to feel cheated by fate or God, that time flows by so quickly. Rather, we should instead feel cheated by man, those central bankers and warmongers, whose efforts steal at least half our usufruct.
Think today if they hadn’t, that we would each have made twice the accomplishment over the past half year, or could stop all efforts toward accomplishment today and achieve in that alternate scenario have achieved the same that we will now achieve by toiling through the remainder of 2026.
Excess toil makes time pass swiftly, as does excess leisure. It may do well for people to remember why they are being deprived of their time and the enjoyment of its modest and slow passage.
Wednesday evening I’ll share our (almost) mid-year update in terms of things that are staying & things that are changing - we’re expanding our footprint in Texas next month which will continue to support growth within the oil and gas sector…, internally & with our outside partners. Other key sectors and players that we support in the south will benefit but this has been a major area of growth in ‘26. There’s a lot to share and I look fwd to providing the update shortly
Hard to believe it’s almost June