Jay O'Connor

Dunhill Creek Capital. Futuri Media. I like finance, technology, wine and my dog. Not necessarily in that order.

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@thoughtfulmoney @SantiagoAuFund @ctindale Brent- Amen, brother. Every once in a while the lion has to show the jackals who he is!

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@BullandBaird I'm not sure anything is any different than it was 100 years ago. See chart:

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@JackPosobiec Nah...That's Miami.

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@amlivemon Excellent response.

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@Menckenist @SantiagoAuFund Here's a very interesting take: https://t.co/mK2AWNdq9i

[James E. Thorne @DrJStrategy]

Food for thought.

Trump, Hormuz and the End of the Free Ride

For half a century, Western strategists have known that the Strait of Hormuz is the acute point where energy, sea power and political will intersect. That knowledge is not in dispute. What is new in this war with Iran is that the United States, under Donald Trump, has chosen not to rush to “solve” the problem. In Hegelian terms, he is refusing an easy synthesis in order to force the underlying contradiction to the surface.

The old thesis was simple: the US guarantees open sea lanes in the Gulf, and everyone else structures their economies and politics around that free insurance. Europe and the UK embraced ambitious green policies, ran down hard‑power capabilities and lectured Washington on multilateral virtue, secure in the assumption that American carriers would always appear off Hormuz. The political class behaved as if the American security guarantee were a law of nature, not a contingent choice. Their conduct today is closer to Chamberlain than Churchill: temporising, issuing statements, hoping the storm will pass without a fundamental reordering of their responsibilities.

Trump’s antithesis is to withhold the automatic guarantee at the moment of maximum stress. Militarily, the US can break Iran’s residual ability to contest the Strait; that is not the binding constraint. The point is to delay that act. By allowing a closure or semi‑closure to bite, Trump ensures that the immediate pain is concentrated in exactly the jurisdictions that have most conspicuously free‑ridden on US power: the EU and the UK. Their industries, consumers and energy‑transition assumptions are exposed.

In that context, his reported blunt message to European and British leaders, you need the oil out of the Strait more than we do; why don’t you go and take it? Is not a throwaway line. It is the verbalisation of the antithesis. It openly reverses the traditional presumption that America will carry the burden while its allies emote from the sidelines.

In this dialectic, the prize is not simply the reopening of a chokepoint. The prize is a reordered system in which the United States effectively arbitrages and controls the global flow of oil. A world in which US‑aligned production in the Americas plus a discretionary capability to secure,or not secure, Hormuz places Washington at the centre of the hydrocarbon chessboard. For that strategic end, a rapid restoration of the old status quo would be counterproductive.

A quick, surgical “fix” of Hormuz would short‑circuit the dialectic. If Trump rapidly crushed Iran’s remaining coastal capabilities, swept the mines and escorted tankers back through the Strait, Europe and the UK would heave a sigh of relief and return to business as usual: underfunded militaries, maximalist green posturing and performative disdain for US power, all underwritten by that same power. The contradiction between their dependence and their posture would remain latent.

By declining to supply the synthesis on demand, and by explicitly telling London and Brussels to “go and take it” themselves, Trump forces a reckoning. European and British leaders must confront the fact that their energy systems, their industrial bases and their geopolitical sermons all rest on an American hard‑power foundation they neither finance nor politically respect. The longer the contradiction is allowed to unfold, the stronger the eventual synthesis can be: a new order in which access to secure flows, Hormuz, Venezuela and beyond, is explicitly conditional on real contributions, not assumed as a right.

In that sense, the delay in “taking” the Strait, and the challenge issued to US allies to do it themselves, is not indecision. It is the negative moment Hegel insisted was necessary for history to move. Only by withholding the old guarantee, and by saying so out loud to those who depended on it, can Trump hope to end the free ride.

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@SenWarren @senwarren this post isn't going well for you. I suggest you rethink and try again.

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@SenWarren Here's the problem. You won't. Federal, state and local squander capital.

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@koda1338 @SantiagoAuFund through the “oil for projects” deal? Sure. Iran has launched missiles into Iraq and at their neighbors. They’ve mined the Strait. We we clear it for them. The Arab world, unthinkable in the past, has turned against them. Where are the Chinese? Crickets.

[Bill Ackman @BillAckman]

Some of the highest quality businesses in the world are trading at extremely cheap prices. Ignore the MSM. One of the most one-sided wars in history that will end well for the U.S. and the world. And we have the potential for a large peace dividend.

One of the best times in a long time to buy quality.

Ignore the bears.

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@LukeGromen @aeberman12 @JayMartinBC Luke, you know...the armchair quarterbacks know everything about military strategy and ops.

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@The_Real_Fly Paul Pelosi

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@LukeGromen @TMTLongShort And what will say back to them....

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

This is the post of the year. 👇👇

[Santiago Capital @SantiagoAuFund]

Imagine being confused as to why a military doesn't publicly disclose their war plans to you...

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@OffGridOutlaw @SantiagoAuFund @MarginoCall Actually, based on the stated objectives, it kind of is going according to plan.

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@SantiagoAuFund @MarginoCall People saying there isn't plan can't stand the messenger (Trump) so they can't even listen to what is being said. Meanwhile, every general appearing on the national newscasts, the white house, analysts, etc. keep repeating the plan. I've heard it so many times I can recite it.

[Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT 🍖 @MikeZaccardi]

The median midterm year drawdown is 15.6% .. S&P 500 1950-2022

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@HayekAndKeynes But then you to drive a Tesla. Yuck.

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@Scaramucci Gavin has an image problem because he's...well...Gavin.

[Jay O'Connor @jayoco]

@KeithMcCullough Nah. This was Pelosi's husband. 🤣