🎙️ NEW PODCAST WITH CHRIS MACINTOSH
About a year ago, Chris sat down with Ladislas (aka The Wandering Investor) to talk about investing in an age of conflict.
Well, 2026 kicked off even spicier than anticipated. Greenland, Venezuela, tariffs, NATO coming apart at the seams, you name it… so Chris and Ladislas got back together to dive into what’s driving all this chaos and, more importantly, how to actually position your capital when the old rules don’t apply anymore.
Here’s a few of the topics they discussed:
- 3 ingredients in today’s “conflict cocktail.” Chris reveals why the conflict we’re watching unfold was mathematically inevitable years ago (and why the podium donuts in power understand this very well). It’s the same pattern that’s played out throughout history when governments back themselves into economic corners.
- Venezuela 2.0: Where Trump sees an oil bonanza, Chris sees $180 billion in infrastructure requirements and another Vietnam “fustercluck.”
- Did someone say capital controls? Europe already has them (under acronyms like KYC and AML), but there’s a very specific path from today’s soft restrictions to hard-er capital controls, likely before 2026 ends… with the UK probably first out of the gate. If you’re European, this timeline matters more than any stock pick you’ll make this year.
- When Chris called Dubai “unbelievably cheap” in 2018-19 (Dubai property was cheaper than Phnom Penh or Nairobi), people laughed about investing in a dictatorship. It’s up 2-3x since (though still cheaper than places like London or New York). So where are the Dubais of 2026? Chris discusses specific jurisdictions around the world where the gap between perception and reality hasn’t closed yet.
- Gold up. Silver up. Uranium up. Copper Up. How broken supply chains meet geopolitical conflict in a stagflationary setup most investors still don’t see… and hard assets are likely to outperform broad equities on a relative basis for the first time in many years.
- Is the China discount justified fear or mispriced opportunity? After Western investors fled in 2023 on “Russia 2.0” panic, valuations collapsed. But what they missed is that China is NOT Russia. Chris explains why and how to turn geopolitical risk into asymmetric upside without betting the farm.
- Argentina, as critical as ever. The recent Venezuela and Greenland developments have put Argentina at the dead center of Monroe Doctrine 2.0. The US is now consolidating the entire Western hemisphere — from Greenland through South America — to lock down supply chains. And when approached the right way, the Argentina opportunity today is even more compelling than before.
- And much more.
Listen to the entire conversation here.
🇦🇷 ARGENTINA: POSITIONING AHEAD OF THE $40 BILLION WAVE
Staying with Argentina and hard assets for a moment more…
If you’re a long-time reader, you know we first got involved with Argentina in Insider back in 2021… long before Milei even popped up on most people’s radars.
We’ve done very well since. Milei’s reforms and the collapsing risk premium led to a re-rating of the assets we bought at the bottom.
As we hinted earlier, we’re still bullish on Argentina. But rather than merely getting exposure through public markets, we’re now doing something else (and no, we’re not building an AI data center somewhere in Patagonia).
Here’s what’s happening…
Argentina’s “risk rating” has dropped from around 3,000 (completely uninvestable for institutional investors) to 557 today.
“Emerging Market” status kicks in at 600. When that official reclassification happens — likely very soon — Argentina suddenly becomes far more attractive to major institutions.
Back-of-napkin math suggests $40-50 billion in immediate capital inflows. But here’s the problem…
There’s maybe 10 Argentinian companies large enough for these institutional players to deploy serious capital into.
The rest will have to hunt in private equity. And we’re positioning ahead of that wave.
Having spent considerable time on the ground over the past years and months, we’ve identified three private equity deals in sectors we believe will benefit most from this turnaround.
- One of those deals is a real estate play in Vaca Muerta — one of the world’s biggest oil and gas fields. With the energy boom ramping up, oil rig worker housing demand currently outstrips supply by 20,000+ beds. And we’re getting in at about $1,800/sqm where comparable units sell for $3,500/sqm.
- We’re also acquiring farmland at a 75% discount to market.
- Plus, we’re picking up producing oil wells that YPF (Argentina’s #1 oil company) is spinning off as “non-core assets.”
We’ve talked about these spinoff setups in the past, and it’s something that always gets us excited. They tend to happen at the bottom of a cycle, and it’s not uncommon to see those unwanted spinoffs go on to outperform their “parents” (or former parents, rather).
If you’re an accredited investor and interested to find out more about the deals and what we’re doing in Argentina, go here for more information.
🇧🇷 TOO CHEAP TO IGNORE
Argentina’s not the only country in South America that’s been on our radar. Brazil is another thematic trade we recently added to the Insider portfolio.
From a big picture perspective, Brazil is leading BRICS dedollarisation efforts, dominates global food exports, and has massive offshore oil reserves that print money at $80+ oil.
It’s a proxy for commodity exposure and a rotation into emerging markets after emerging market small caps have been absolutely bombed out and spent the past 8 years in a tight trading range — a classic long-term bottoming pattern. When markets go sideways this long after such brutal underperformance, breakouts tend to surprise in both magnitude and duration.
Even focusing purely on the numbers, Brazil is one of the cheapest markets on the planet across every cyclically adjusted metric — CAPE, CAPD, CAPCF, CAPB. All of them screaming “cheap” as this table clearly shows (h/t The Idea Farm):
Brazil currently trades at a 10x P/E with a 5-6% dividend yield. Compare that to the S&P’s 25x multiple. Even a modest move back toward 2018-2019 levels — which were already at the lower bounds historically — would deliver 200-300% returns.
Exactly the kind of asymmetric setup you want when concerns about US valuations keep growing.
🏦 BORING BANKS VS MAG 7
We came across a fascinating chart the other day…
Despite all the euphoria around the Magnificent 7 over the past two years, UK banks actually smoked the Mag 7. Whowouldathunkit?!
We’re no strangers to European banks. It’s one of the sectors that’s been on our radar over the years — not because we were bullish on the EU and the UK (we weren’t and we aren’t), but because they struck us as the ultimate contrarian trade.
They spent more than a decade trading below their GFC lows. In fact, as Chris wrote back in 2022…
“You probably had no idea European banks are trading at the same level they did in 1987…
Now, before you fall off your chair in laughter, remember one thing…
Bull markets begin when the vast majority believes they never will. How many folks do you know who are willing to put up their bullish hand on European banks? None!
If inflation turns out to be less ahem “transitory” than we have been promised by people with shiny teeth and smart suits, and we see a consequent run in bond yields, then these hated and forgotten stocks could dramatically outperform the S&P 500 in the coming years.
Admittedly, you won’t impress anyone at cocktail parties talking about investing in European banks right now (if anything, you might not get invited back). But that’s also exactly why we are intrigued by them.”
Turns out bond yields did run. Inflation wasn’t transitory. And those hated, forgotten banks quietly crushed the tech darlings everyone was piling into.
🤣 WEEKLY HUMOUR
Spare a thought for the poor sod at Jefferies burning the midnight oil crunching the numbers on how much fatter airlines’ profits will be as a result of slimmer passengers. Peak financial alchemy!
Have a great week!
