F Christopher

Views are not financial advice.
DYODD.

Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality
-Frank Herbert

[F Christopher @FChristopher17]

place holder 📋

[HFI Research @HFI_Research]

Regional oil balances from Morgan Stanley.

[bob coleman @profitsplusid]

SLV Volatility Skew Alert

We saw extreme bearish activity in SLV options yesterday. Reading saw a level of +8.4. The previous high was around +4 at the end of March .

The rally after the March low (bearish option activity) moved silver up about $13.

note - a deeply negative number actually means more call activity (buying)

[J. Fong @jfhksar88]

This is a great interview. Very lucid take on Gold. https://t.co/7HZ4bvFiur

[Kathleen Tyson @Kathleen_Tyson_]

The RECOVERABLE oil in the salt caverns for SPR may be just 100 million barrels, far less than 340 million, and caverns risk collapse if drained too low easing internal structural pressure.

Of course, Trump could give his neighbour the no bid job to paint them with pipe sealer . . .

[World Source News @Worldsource24]

Iran’s Fars News:

- A source close to the Iranian negotiating team told Fars reporter: The claim by the US Vice President about the return of agency inspectors to Iran is false.

- This informed source added: In the Switzerland negotiations, there was no discussion about the presence of inspectors in the country.

[Tracy Shuchart (𝒞𝒽𝒾 ) @chigrl]

China’s Gold Imports Surge to Most in More Than Two Years

China’s monthly gold imports reached their highest in more than two years in May, showing the world’s biggest buyer’s appetite for bullion remained resilient as prices remained under pressure.

Imports were around 163 tons last month, the highest since March 2024, according to customs data released on Saturday. Volumes for the first five months of 2026 were about 692 tons, up by about 76% from a year earlier. (Bloomberg)

[Valerie Anne Smith @ValerieAnne1970]

SHOCKING: Dr. Ben Carson Reveals How European Food Cured His Friend’s Diabetes in 2 Weeks — Then American Food Brought It Back

His friend had a very difficult case of diabetes.

He went to Italy… ate their food… and within TWO WEEKS his diabetes was completely gone.

He stayed for three months.
Came back to America… and within TWO WEEKS the diabetes came roaring back.

This isn’t “bad luck.”
This is proof that American food is poisoning us.

Clean European food reversed his disease.
Toxic, ultra-processed, chemical-loaded American food brought it right back.

Our grocery stores and restaurants are loaded with ingredients and processing methods that much of Europe has banned or strictly limits.
We are literally eating our way into chronic illness while being told it’s normal.

Dr. Ben Carson is sounding the alarm.

The diabetes epidemic isn’t random.
It’s manufactured by the food we’re being sold.

Change what you put in your body before it changes (or ends) your life.

The evidence is right in front of us.
Real food heals.
American “food” destroys.

[Z4 Energy Research @ZmansEnrgyBrain]

Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson:

Iranian nuclear materials won't be exported

Iran’s missiles are only intended to be launched, not discussed - state media

Fees will be charged for services provided to ships

#IRAN #TACO #OOTT

[HFI Research @HFI_Research]

Wait, Trump just admitted openly to running out of oil reserves in 4 weeks?

[F Christopher @FChristopher17]

@jfhksar88 Their playbook must be full of "narrative" for almost all contingencies to manage the algos

[Vandana Hari @VandanaHari_SG]

My initial observations and thoughts on the US-Iran MoU announced hours ago:

Some immediate relief followed by a week of nervous wait.

➡️ FOUR MORE DAYS - MoU is to be signed on Friday, June 19. No explanation from either side why it could not have been signed sooner if it has already been agreed. More talks are planned until then, according to some reports. Hmmm…

➡️ CONTENTS UNKNOWN - After the initial relief, the fact that the contents of the MoU are not known is likely to inject unease and uncertainty into the market. Will the language be made public only upon signing on Friday? If yes, that’s going to be nervous wait.

➡️ NARRATIVE WAR - Until the MoU is made public, expect a full-on narrative war between Washington and Tehran on its contents. That could mean a week of uncertainty and volatility for the oil market.

➡️ CONTENTIOUS ISSUES - The only tangible agreements made public so far are that the war will end on all fronts effective today and the Strait of Hormuz is to be reopened from Friday, with the US lifting its blockade (immediately). What will the MoU say about any Iranian pledge on its nuclear programme, the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen funds? Have these contentious issues been resolved or are they to be thrashed out by Friday?

➡️ STRAIT STILL CLOSED - The Strait of Hormuz is to reopen starting Friday, June 19, according to Trump. Coincidence that it is exactly the time period needed to clear mines? Or is it that Tehran refused to open if before the MoU is official and before it could establish that the US blockade has been fully lifted?

➡️ LEBANON QUESTION - Is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on board with the “end of war on all fronts” pledge? And if he isn’t, could the MoU be scuttled before it is even signed? If the Israel-Hezbollah conflict continues to simmer, what are the chances of the US-Iran negotiations proceeding smoothly after the MoU?

[F Christopher @FChristopher17]

" is about being on the right side of monetary debasement, and the right side has always been owning real assets, productive businesses, scarce commodities, and the one monetary metal that has functioned as money continuously for 5,000 years"

[Lee Roach @leevalueroach]

I do not understand, in 2026, why anyone is shorting anything, and I have, over the last several years, watched a generation of intelligent, well-credentialed, technically sophisticated investors set fire to their capital on the short side of a market that has been telegraphing its direction with the subtlety of a marching band, and the only explanation I have ever been able to construct is that none of these people have read a single page of monetary history written before 1990.

The setup is not subtle. The federal government is running a 7% structural deficit with no political coalition in either party willing to address it. The Treasury is issuing debt at a pace that will push publicly held debt-to-GDP past 130% within five years, which is the level at which, historically, every government in recorded history has either inflated its way out, defaulted, or both. The Fed is, regardless of what it says in public, the marginal buyer of that debt, and the only mechanism it has to fund the purchases is the creation of new dollars. The money is being printed. The debt is being monetized. The currency is being debased. And asset prices, which are denominated in the currency being debased, are doing the only thing they have ever done in any country that has ever tried this, which is going up.

Every country that has run this experiment has produced the same chart. Weimar Germany in 1922 and 1923 produced one of the most violent equity bull markets in recorded history in nominal terms, as the mark collapsed and the Berlin exchange repriced upward by orders of magnitude. Argentina, across four separate inflationary cycles since 1975, produced in each cycle a nominal rally that outran every short thesis published, while the peso lost 99.9% of its purchasing power. Zimbabwe in 2007 and 2008 produced an equity market that rose so violently the exchange had to be closed because the calculations could not keep up. Turkey, right now, in front of the entire world, has produced a Borsa Istanbul up 1,400% in lira terms while the lira has lost 85% against the dollar, and every short of Turkish equities has been carried out in nominal terms even when they were right in real terms.

The lesson is not that asset prices are going up because the businesses are getting better. The lesson is that asset prices are going up because the unit they are measured in is getting smaller, and any investor who positions short against this dynamic is betting against the will and capacity of a government to debase its own currency, which is the single most reliable bet you can lose in 4,000 years of recorded monetary history. The government always wins. The government always debases. The currency always loses purchasing power. The assets always reprice upward in nominal terms, on a path the shorts always insist is unsustainable and that always, somehow, sustains.

You can short individual frauds. You cannot short the market. You cannot short the currency itself without being on the wrong side of the largest force in modern capital markets, which is the slow, politically inevitable destruction of the dollar’s purchasing power against everything that cannot be printed. The shorts have been wrong for five years. They will be wrong for the next five. The only investors who will, in real terms, preserve and grow their wealth are the ones who understood, early, that the game is not about being right on valuation, it is about being on the right side of monetary debasement, and the right side has always been owning real assets, productive businesses, scarce commodities, and the one monetary metal that has functioned as money continuously for 5,000 years, while the people on the other side continue to insist this time is different. This time has never been different. The math is the math. The shorts will continue to lose. The owners will continue to win.

[Barchart @Barchart]

Gold has overtaken U.S. Treasuries as the World's Top Reserve Asset 🤯👀

[Energy Headline News @OilHeadlineNews]

Iran military official says Beirut attack will not go 'unanswered': media

'No point' in peace talks if US fails to uphold commitments: Iran chief negotiator

[Jack Prandelli @jackprandelli]

🛢️🚨Shell, in a single day:

-Pauses its $3B share buyback.
-Prepares to sell $1B of offshore wind farms.
-Pushes toward closing a $16.4B gas acquisition, its biggest deal in a decade.

That's one company telling you its thesis.

💰The deal:

The ARC Resources acquisition is Shell's largest since BG in 2016 and the logic is geographic.

ARC's gas sits next to Shell's fields feeding LNG Canada (Shell: 40%).

LNG Canada ships to Asia without touching Hormuz, Suez OR Panama. The shortest safe route on the map.

Why Shell needs it?

Shell's quiet problem are aging fields and dwindling reserves.
Analysts said it needed a big discovery or a big deal.
It chose the deal paid 75% in shares, at a 20% premium.

When a supermajor pays up with its own equity, it's telling you which assets it thinks outlast the cycle.

Same day: wind farms for sale, India renewables under review, buyback already cut from $3.5B to preserve cash after war-related strain.

Under Sawan, Shell isn't an "energy company" anymore. It's becoming a gas-and-LNG machine with an oil business attached.

Follow the full year: Gunvor buys US shale gas.

Shell signs in Venezuela, blocks rivals at Browse, now $16.4B for Canadian gas while selling wind.

The biggest players have stopped debating the transition's pace.

They're positioning for a long gas era.

[The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter]

BREAKING: Iran rejects Trump’s plan of a weekend deal-signing ceremony with Vance, saying any plan about signing in Geneva, Switzerland or a face-to-face meeting is nothing but a “mistaken understanding of US proposals and wishes,” due to the absence of a final deal, per Fars.

[The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter]

This is completely false. All reports claiming a deal has been reached, including Trump's claims yesterday are market manipulation ahead of today’s SpaceX IPO. Iran has explicitly rejected that any deal has been finalized.

[Simon @sich8]

Gold has *likely* printed a Daily Cycle Low today:

https://t.co/Pwo6fCcoND

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

The cheapest, most effective wildfire crew in California has four legs and eats the problem.

Clearing flammable brush off a steep slope by hand is brutal, slow, expensive work. A herd of goats is none of those things.

Hand clearance:

- Around 28,000 dollars an acre
- People with tools on dangerous slopes
- Cuttings that then have to be hauled away

A herd of goats:

- Roughly 500 to 1,000 dollars an acre
- Climbs slopes no crew wants to touch
- Eats the brush to a firebreak and fertilises the ground on the way through
- Reaches branches several feet up
- Visibly thrilled to be at work

Calling the goat a quaint throwback has it backwards. On this job the goat is the superior technology by a factor of about fifty, and it runs on the very scrub everyone else is paying to remove.

[Sam Kovacs @SamKovX]

The oil market is so, so F*CKED.

1. Let's start with the obvious: Hormuz very shut, barrels have not been flowing.

2. The cavalry isn't coming: US rig count is effectively flat. Nobody is rushing to add supply, as the market narrative remains: the war ends soon.

3. Cushing is within a stone throw of being empty. 2 numbers matter at Cushing 70mb (full) and 20mb (empty). When it hit 70 in 2020, WTI went negative. When it will hit 20 in June, WTI will skyrocket. I wrote and spoke about this yesterday.

4. Managed money is barely long. There is no speculative money propping up the price of oil right now. When it piles in, it will add fuel to the fire.

@gnoble79