We highlighted before the decline in capex by (predominantly Western) oil and gas companies. Take a look at this chart, which shows just how steep this drop is: The irony of the situation is this lack of spending on replacing reserves is paving the way for a repeat of the 1970’s oil crisis. Attitudes towards oil (and fossil fuels) in the West today are eerily similar to attitudes towards the tobacco industry in the late 1990s. No one wanted to

📈  INFLATION: THE CAT IS OUT OF THE BAG Over in the US, the core CPI just hit the highest level in nearly 30 years: Not to mention the fact that food prices are up 40% in some cases over the past year. But don’t fret. The pointy-shoed experts have it all under control (or so they say): As far as markets go, the “irony” of the prevailing belief that any inflation will be temporary is that the weighting to

A month ago, on 27 April, we said au revoir to our bitcoin holdings. After hanging on to our coins for years (we were bullish on bitcoin since 2014 and recommended it to clients at $450), we sold our entire position. So why the change of heart? As we explained it to Insider members in a sell alert: We buy assets which are cheap and stay away from those that are either expensive or that we simply don’t understand. Risk/reward considerations

📉   THE CURSE OF THE IPO One of the best contrarian indicators are major IPOs (or ETF listings) in a particular sector. Looking back, the recent Coinbase IPO appears to perfectly fit that bill. Here’s Bloomberg on the topic: Throughout history, initial public offerings have taken place at peaks of confidence. When the owners of a big private company think market conditions are as good as they are going to get, they will go public. And as they know what

🛢️ DATA COPPER IS THE NEW OIL It turns out copper, not data, is the new oil: This prompted us to dust off an old Insider Weekly issue from March 2020, where we highlighted the asymmetry that copper — and a host of other resource markets — offered at the time. Energy, copper, broad commodities, industrial metals and agriculture – all these sectors have been locked in vicious bear markets over the last 5 years or so. These sectors are the most under

How come the iShares ESG USA Index (ESGU) has a 2.5% weighting to oil and gas stocks? And how come that weighting is more or less the same as the S&P 500? It’s almost as if we’re being played. While this might get us termed “climate deniers” or whatever the label du jour is, the ESG thing is complete, total, unashamed bollocks… and this includes ESG ETFs. They are designed to separate brainwashed fools from their money, while providing their ill

  CRYPTOMANIA We highlighted the curious case of Dogecoin last week. Just $1,000 into what started as a joke cryptocurrency at the start of the year would now be enough to buy a Tesla. Have you ever seen a chart like this before which ended well? We haven’t. As Chris put it in his last note to Insider members: Folks, this is a mania. Like all manias before it this one has been spurred on by enthusiastic promoters. I get it. Heck, I’m

🥊 SPACS ARE GETTING SPANKED It was just a few weeks ago when SPACs were all the rage and we saw headlines like these: What a wonderful contrarian indicator that was. Whenever you see the media crowning the next Warren Buffett, we are probably either close to the top or the top is already in. In the case of SPACs, it took just a few short weeks for the whole thing to come unglued. And the “next Buffett”? “All six