Lisa Brown

Mostly global macro, economics and politics. All in the name of bespoke investment research.

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

Courage is the most important virtue of all the virtues because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

Maya Angelou

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

Listening to these NYTimes reporters 😔
What strikes me is 1) absolutely nothing has changed after 10+ years of Trump on the scene. Nothing has been learned, no new epiphanies or conclusions and, 2) Americans have exactly the leadership they deserve
https://t.co/qL0ETSWhjB

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

@BullandBaird To be fair, what one would do at 24 and what one would do at 50 are two very different things

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

@iamgingertrash Indeed

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

@PositivistWitch Ironically the “hedge fund” part refers to no risk management and unidirectional leverage. It means he can do whatever he wants with other people’s money. He couldn’t get away with that in any other structure.

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

@florianederer Are there really that many economic ideas on the other side though? Isn’t it all just me me me, greed greed greed? What’s to discover or write about?

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

@buyerofponzi Pigs get slaughtered. 🤷🏽‍♀️

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

@wallymac59 @WSJ Oh sure it’s a win for everyone who doesn’t work in those plants and factories and everyone who doesn’t live in those towns where those plants and factories are and everyone whose business doesn’t rely on those employed by those plants and factories.

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

Well let’s find where the UAE’s national interests and those of its investors, partners, and customers diverge from those of OPEC’s. Then we’ll know if this is the first domino, or a simple carve out.

[Javier Blas @JavierBlas]

🚨🚨🚨🚨FULL STATEMENT:

UAE says it's leaving the OPEC oil cartel from May 1.

"... Following its exit, the UAE will continue to act responsibly, bringing additional production to market in a gradual and measured manner, aligned with demand and market conditions..."

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

@dogeofficialceo Wouldn’t it be easier for him to just resign?

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

There will be no diplomatic end to this war as long as Trump is president. Iran knows his word, and the “team” delivering it, is dogshit.

[Tyler Pager @tylerpager]

NEWS in Islamabad:

After marathon negotiations, JD Vance says, “The bad news is that we have not reached a deal.”

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

Indeed! Nothing coming out of the headlines is worth anything. Trump will do and say anything, for any reason. His word is worthless. The info on the ground is where it’s at.

[Nakul Sarda @nakul_sarda]

I've stopped reading Gulf war headlines. Here's what I track instead.

We run an India-focused equity fund. 85% of India's crude comes from imports. Half of that normally passes through Hormuz. So yes — this crisis is personal.

But the information environment right now is garbage. Trump says the war ends tomorrow. Iran says Hormuz is shut forever. One analyst says $150 oil, another says $60. You can't build a portfolio view on this.

So I've narrowed it down to 4 signals. These are priced by people with real money on the line. They don't lie.

1. Ship insurance premiums through Hormuz

This is the single best signal. Lloyd's underwriters have billions at stake on every pricing call. Before the war, insuring a tanker through Hormuz cost 0.25% of the ship's value. Today it's 3.5–10% — and almost nobody is buying. A $100M tanker that cost $250K to insure now costs up to $10M. When this drops below 2%, the people with the most to lose are telling you it's getting safer. No press conference can replicate that.

2. How many ships are actually crossing

Every ship carries a GPS tracker (AIS). You can count exactly how many cross Hormuz each day. Before: 100+. Now: 8. That's a 92% collapse. You can't spin a ship being somewhere it isn't. Iran is letting some Chinese and Indian ships through, but it's a trickle. When this number crosses 30–40, trade is resuming. You can track this free on the WTO Hormuz Trade Tracker.

3. Paper oil vs real oil

This one most people miss entirely. Brent crude (the headline price) is at $112. But Dubai physical — what Asian buyers actually pay for delivered oil — is at $126. That's a $14 gap. It exists because Trump's comments keep pushing paper prices down. Traders call it jawboning. But the refiners buying cargo aren't getting any discount. If you're looking at Brent to assess India's oil bill, you're looking at the wrong number.

4. The mid-April cliff

Multiple emergency measures expire around the same time. The 400 million barrel SPR release runs dry ~April 15. The US waiver letting India buy Russian crude expires. Formosa Plastics has declared force majeure from April 1. Right now these stopgaps are keeping the supply gap at ~5 mb/d. Without them, BCA Research estimates it doubles to 10 mb/d — the largest crude disruption ever. If Hormuz doesn't reopen by mid-April, we're in uncharted territory.

Bottom line: track the insurance premium, the ship count, the paper-physical spread, and the April timeline. Everything else is noise.

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

@AT_4617 @KeithMcCullough That doesn’t make it better. Someone with MNPI is trading on it.

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

Years from now, when ppl are writing the USD’s many obituaries, this Strait of Hormuz episode will be the fulcrum of its demise.

[Pepe Escobar @RealPepeEscobar]

Petroyuan is already in effect in the Strait of Hormuz toll booth.

Up next:

China suggests to GCC to sell all their energy in petroyuan.

They get free Hormuz passage.

China opens Shanghai Gold Exchange vaults, co-custody by Iran and GCC .

Iran and GCC are then able to convert their yuan surpluses in silver and gold.

Game, set, match.

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

Hormuz is not just an energy story, it’s “a food security event with an energy trigger”

[Nazem Alkudsi, CFA @LongArcNews]

The Hormuz closure is not a 6-week shock. It is an 18-month stress test for the global food system.
Most allocators are trading the obvious: oil up, defense up, gold up.
They are missing the connective tissue. 🧵

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

I bet https://t.co/Oxy4g1bzEA

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

Listening to this man just now, I’m overwhelmed by the amount of idiocy that we’re all just expected to tolerate. This does not end well. Risk is underpriced all across the board

[Robert A. Pape @ProfessorPape]

Sec Hegseth just injected massive confusion, saying bombing Iran is NOT about Regime Change. This directly contradicts Pres Trump. Shows we are losing control. Iran is gaining control, waging protracted war. Trump is now caught in the Smart Bomb Trap

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

@ScottMc59867454 @HealthRanger That was the trigger

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

@mungowitz @heresyfinancial Uhm. Have you noticed that there is no substitute for the things that are getting more expensive and that if you need them, and choose not to buy them, in many cases you die? Do you think that might infer some pricing power?

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

@josh_wingrove Oh really? Which parts? Was Trump even able to understand what he said? Be specific

[Lisa Brown @Gorgoncap]

@annmarie