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- [00:08]
A
This is Macro Voices, the free weekly financial podcast targeting professional finance, high net worth individuals, family offices and other sophisticated investors. Macro Voices is all about the brightest minds in the world of finance and macroeconomics, telling it like it is bullish or bearish. No holds barred. Now here are your hosts, Eric Townsend and Patrick Seresna.
- [00:34]
B
Macro voices Episode 531 was produced on May 7, 2026. I'm Eric Townsend. It's been another roller coaster week in the Iran conflict with the on again off again signaling about ceasefires and peace talks leading to plenty of market volatility. Gavcal Co founder Louis Vincent Gav returns as this week's feature interview guest to dissect what's going on in the conflict and what it will mean for global markets in coming months. We'll also touch on China and precious metals then be sure to stay tun Stay tuned for our post game segment after the feature interview when Patrick's Trade of the Week will explore a setup built around Louis Gav's view that countries and corporations are entering a new era of strategic commodity stockpiling. And then we'll have our usual coverage of all the markets with Patrick's postgame chart deck. The feature interview was recorded on Monday, well before crude oil prices collapsed in the wee hours of Wednesday morning on rumors of a peace deal that were still unconfirmed as of recording time early Thursday morning. I'll have an update on the latest in the crude oil coverage in our post game segment. There's also big news for our listeners who invested in ALO Atomics after CEO Matt Lozak appeared on this podcast two months ago. I'll cover that news when we touch on uranium in the post game segment after the feature interview.
- [01:56]
C
And I'm Patrick Ceresna with the Macro Scoreboard. Week over Week as of the close of Wednesday, May 6, 2026, the S&P 500 index up 322, BAS trading at 7365. The market continues to rip to 52 week highs as semis lead the way. We'll take a closer look at that chart and the key technical levels to watch in the post game segment. The US dollar index down 97 basis points to 9801 the June WTI crude oil contract down 1104 basis points trading to 9508, a material pullback on hopes of an Iranian peace deal. The June RBOB gasoline down 362 basis points to 346 the June gold contract up 292 basis points trading at 4694. The July copper contract up 422 basis points to 618. A substantial breakout of copper out of a one month consolidation. The May uranium contract down 64 basis points trading at 86. Even the US 10 year treasury yield down 10 basis points trading at 433. The key news to watch this Friday is the monthly jobs numbers and next week we have the Fed chair nomination vote, the CPI and PPI inflation numbers and retail sales. This week's feature interview guest is Louis Vincent Gav. Eric and Louis discuss the growing risk that the Strader Hormuz disruption becomes more prolonged than the markets expect, why countries may be forced to rebuild strategic inventories of physical commodities, and how the shifting geopolitical landscape could impact everything from semiconductor conductors and supply chains to Asian currencies and global inflation. Eric's interview with Louis Gav is coming up as Macro Voices continues right here@macrovoices.com.
- [04:00]
A
And now with this week's special guest, here's your host, Eric Townsend.
- [04:06]
B
Joining me now is Gavcal co founder Louis Vincent Gaff. Louis, I'm so excited to get you on. I always enjoy your non US based perspective. Having lived in France and in Hong Kong and all over the world, I think of you as a very international perspective kind of guy. If ever we needed to step away from the biases of US And US Foreign policy and so forth, I think it's now. So without me preloading you with any of my thoughts, what do you think about this Iran situation that's going on? The market seems to be pretty darn certain. It's just no big deal. We're off to new all time highs, nothing to worry about. With 20% of the world's oil potentially cut off in the Strait of Hormuz. What do you make of this?
- [04:54]
D
First of all, again, thanks for having me and I want to commend you for the lineups that you've had in recent weeks. I've really enjoyed listening to Rory, to Anas, to everybody you've had on here. And look, I'm not sure I have great insights on what's happening in Iran. I would say this, I would say it is fascinating that the oil markets have behaved in a certain way. Obviously gasoline prices have ripped higher, oil prices have ripped higher. And yes, to your point, the equity markets have mostly brushed it off and we'll go into that, I think, but perhaps a little bit later. Now the reality, I think one of the reasons the equity markets have been able to so far brush this off is that while so far the energy price spike, and let's say oil is a depending on which benchmark you want to use, brand, WTI, et cetera, you're essentially hovering around 100 to 110 bucks. It's high, but it's actually not punitively high. If you take $100 WTI, or if you take today's gasoline price and you look at it adjusted for cpi, and you look at it as a percentage of US Disposable income, either of these measures, you're sort of getting close to the upper band where things start to get really uncomfortable, but you're not hitting sort of recession band yet. So all this to say, $100 oil, sure, it's not great, it's not ideal, but perhaps one of the reasons the equity markets are brushing it off is that it's not a crisis. $100 oil is not a crisis. 120, 130, that's when it really starts to take a bite. That's when the pain starts. So the question really becomes, do we get there? Do we get to the 120, 130. Now, I think if we go back to a month ago, there was that period when the Israelis bombed the Iranian energy infrastructure, and Iran responded by bombing the Qatari gas field. And at that point it really felt like, oh, my God, they're really. It's not going to be just about the straits being closed. They're actually taking each other's infrastructure away, which opened up a much more nightmarish scenario. Because right now, if you look at the oil forward curve, essentially you look at oil in six months time, and it's at 85 bucks, so. Or 80 bucks. So the market is essentially saying, yeah, you know what, Hormuz is going to reopen. I don't know if it reopens this week or next week or in a month or two, but in six months it'll be reopened. And so by and large, we'll be fine. Of course, if we start to bomb each other's infrastructure, then even if Hormuz is reopened and you're still left with busted infrastructure and a whole other quandary. So I think in the first few weeks of the war, that was the big uncertainty. Do we, do we bomb each other's infrastructure? And it looked like we walked back, then the whole question became, oh, does Hormuz reopen? And the market started to price in. Well, you know what? I don't know when it's going to reopen. But it's going to reopen. So all this to say there's different ways in which the market might be right or might be wrong. The first question is, are we really done with the threat of bombing each other's infrastructure, or was that just a short term truce? Because if we go back to bombing each other's infrastructure, then we're not talking whether we go from 100 bucks to 120, then we're at 200 very, very quickly. And with 200 comes economic devastation. So the first problem is, what probability do you put on that the idea that we go back to bombing each other's energy infrastructure? The second problem is the probability on reopening Hormuz and reopening Hormuz smoothly. And here, you know, if I'm Iran, why, why would I want to reopen Horus? This is what I keep coming back to, is today Iran is saying, look, you want to put your ships through there, It'll cost you 2 million bucks. And if we go back to a world in which hundred ships pay 2 million bucks to Iran, that'll be equivalent to roughly 20% of Iranian GDP. So now that they have this potential revenue, why would they give that up? Put yourself in the shoes of the irgc. Pre the war, they were selling their oil. They were selling between half a million and a million barrels, mostly through Iran's dark fleet. And they were selling it at 20 bucks discount, mostly to China and mostly to teapot refiners in China who were buying this oil at a $20 discount. So again, half a million to a million barrels at 60 bucks. Now Iran is conceptually selling a million and a half, maybe 2 million barrels a day at huge premiums to spot, because as you know, the Oman benchmarks, et cetera, are much higher. So they're probably selling a million and a half barrels at, I don't know, 120, 130 bucks. And at the same time, for the few shibs that go through, they get 2 million a ship for them. It's pretty awesome. This is like, financially they're doing better than they ever have. So as long as they don't get bombed, like the ceasefire is a good deal for them. You know, I firmly believe in Charlie Munger saying that. Show me the incentives and I'll tell you the outcome. Iran's incentive is to not get bombed. And the way they don't get bombed is they say, if you bomb us, we're going to bomb the energy infrastructure of the other guys. Which, you know, is a pretty scary thought for Everybody involved. So right now, the market, if you look at the curve, et cetera, is essentially pricing in a reopening of the straits in the coming weeks, which I'm, I'm personally dubious. I don't see what Iran has to gain. And then you get to the third big player in this arena, which is Saudi Arabia. Now, you know, Saudi now has. They can export through the Red Sea, they can export four and a half, five million barrels, which is down from the roughly 809 they were exporting before. But before, remember, they were exporting 809 at 60 bucks. And now they move into a world where it's like, we can export five maybe at about 120 bucks, or we can export 809, but then we have to give a bunch of money to Iran for every ship that goes by. And we don't really like Iran. We definitely don't want to give them 2 million bucks a ship. So maybe we just sell five at 120 bucks rather than 809 at 60 bucks and have to pay Iran a toll on the way. So again, show me the incentives and I'll tell you the outcome. I think the futures oil market is pricing in a return to Saudi, to uae, et cetera, you know, essentially producing fully and sending their oil through the Hormu Straits. I'm not sure that comes back or it's not obvious to me that it does. So perhaps the better bet today is the idea that oil in six months time is still too cheap.
- [11:52]
B
Louis, you said this is not that big of a deal. At $100 oil, it's not the end of the world economically. And I agree with you completely. But hang on a second. This is a much bigger physical market dislocation in terms of delivery of oil than something like the abcake bombing that happened a few years ago. But we're not seeing that price dislocation. So I guess what I come back to is, okay, yeah, it's 100, it's not 150. But why isn't it 150 when every single oil analyst that I listen to is saying the same thing, which is this is the absolute biggest physical disruption in the history of the oil market ever. Okay? We've had lots of much bigger price dislocations than this one. So it seems like the whole investment community is kind of shrugging it off, saying, oh, those oil guys are just talking their book. What's going on?
- [12:50]
D
That's right. What do they know? What do those guys know? No, like, look, I completely agree and to Your point, and I know it's a point you've discussed with previous guests, it's, of course, not just oil. It's natural gas and it's fertilizer and it's urea and it's helium. It's like all sorts of stuff. We don't want to reduce the Middle east to just the oil. I think, perhaps most importantly, what this highlights, this whole war highlights a message we already had gotten with the Houthi things and saying that you and I discussed before. But the days when you could always count on the US Navy to patrol the oceans and to deliver whatever goods you ordered are now clearly over. And this isn't because of Trump, and this isn't because of Iran. It's just in this new age of drone warfare, controlling the world's ocean has just become impossible. And this matters a lot, because I think it really means that every country that for years and years, just always saved in U.S. treasuries because you knew that in a crisis, the treasury market is the biggest, deepest liquid market in the world. You could always transform your Treasuries into whatever commodity you needed. That is no longer true. Look at India. India's got 700 billion in US treasuries, and they're out of fertilizer. And so they call China and say, hey, you guys have a lot of fertilizer because you've been smart enough to stockpile it for the past decade. Can you sell us some, please? And China says, sorry, mate, I'd rather keep what I have, but good luck selling your Treasuries for fertilizer. I don't want to belittle what we're going through. I think it's a dramatic shock to the system. I think coming out of this, every country will say, you know what? I can't sprinkle Treasuries on my field to grow wheat. I can't shove Treasuries into my car to make it go. So every country will have to build inventories of refined products, inventories of fertilizer, inventories of stockpiles of oil. If you want to essentially have an independent monetary policy and an independent foreign policy, you will now need to stockpile commodities. It's just that simple. Because the days when you can rely on the United States to bring you what you need are now over. And I think this was, I think, already obvious for anybody who paid attention following Russia, Ukraine, and following Houthis, but now it really is in your face. So I completely take your point that energy prices should be higher. The question has to be why isn't it? And the only thing I can really come up with is that oil is a sort of unique market in that we have a lot of buffers in the system. Obviously the oil on the chips and the inventories and the Strategic Petroleum Reserves, there's a lot of buffers in the system and that maybe in this crisis, maybe, you know, following Russia, Ukraine, following the Red Sea thing, people did build up their buffers. The most obvious one, of course, is China. Officially, China has roughly 1.3 billion barrels and reserves. We've actually published various reports highlighting that the number is actually probably closer to 1.8 billion barrels. So China today has more oil in storage than the rest of the world combined. And the reason this matters, of course, is China's the biggest oil importer in the world. So having this massive oil inventory gives China the ability to go into the market when prices are down and to back off when prices are high. Now, what's fascinating is I would have actually expected in the back of all of this for China to back off with the price of the spike. You would have expected to see the price spike. You'd have expected China to back off. If you look at official import numbers for March, we don't have them yet for April, China's imports of oil were still up 8% year on year in March. So it doesn't look like China's backed off. Although maybe you take the official numbers with a grain of sand. Maybe on the official stuff they backed off, but all the teapots, refiners, the dark fleet or all that stuff, maybe that faded. That's always very, very hard to know the bottom line. I think perhaps the market is assuming two things. The market is a assuming that Hormuz is going to reopen in the not so distant future. And here I just discussed, given the set of incentives, I'm not sure that that assumption will turn out. So that's number one. I think the second thing the market is assuming is, look, there's all this storage in China. So we're not going to hit a crisis like say 2008, when China came into the market following the Gansu and Sichuan earthquakes and just, you know, hit, hit the bid on absolutely everything, everything that was energy related. So I think these are the two markets assumption and they both turn out to be right, but they may still both turn out to be wrong as well. The bottom line for me, if we step away from the day to day, if we step away from the, you know, why on markets reacting Et cetera. And we project ourselves to 6 months, 12 months, 18 months from now. I think you're still left in a situation where individuals, where companies, where countries will be building more inventories, where we will look at the supply shock and decide, you know what? I need to stockpile fertilizer. I need to stockpile more natural gas. You know, why does Korea have less than a week's worth of natural gas today and China has more than 50 days? If I'm a Korean voter, I'll say, you know what? I'd rather have fewer US Weapons, I'd rather have fewer US Treasuries, and I'd rather have more natural gas in storage, thank you very much. And so I think every country will head down this way. So however you cut it, you end up with a structural outlook for commodities that is, for me, pretty darn bullish.
- [18:43]
B
I definitely want to come back to both China and structural bullish argument for commodities. But first, as you said, I've spoken to quite a few guests about everything from fertilizer to other knock on effects. There's one I've been saving just for you, Louis, before this. Let's set the Wayback Machine to before the.
- [19:02]
D
Is it border wine that you've been saving for me?
- [19:04]
B
No, you've already got the market cornered on, on that one. What I want to go back to is before the Hormuz crisis broke out, the AI trade was kind of running out of steam. And the reason, or at least one of the reasons, that a lot of people were starting to question whether we were about to see a bursting of the AI bubble was because AI was getting constrained by energy. We didn't have enough electricity to really build all the data centers that AI wanted to build. People were getting really concerned about being enough energy, and that was maybe gonna pop the AI bubble. Now add an oil crisis, and that means that there's even more reason for worry. And semiconductors are through the roof, driving this massive rally in the S and P to new all time highs. Apparently, the AI trade is back and back with a vengeance. Why? Because there's a looming threat of a global energy crisis that could make the reasons that the bubble was gonna pop even worse. I'm missing something here. So am I. Maybe misinterpreting is the reason that semiconductors are rallying so incredibly strongly not related to AI. I mean, I don't get it.
- [20:23]
D
Now, look, it's the rise in semiconductors for those of us who, like me, who unfortunately haven't been massively long, is quite painful. It's especially painful for emerging market investors if you look at the EM index. Well, depending on which benchmark you're using. But essentially Samsung, TSMC and SK Hynix are anywhere from a fifth to a quarter of people's benchmarks now. And in a month like April where they all rip more than 30%, you're left scrambling. So you look at the EM benchmark has absolutely crushed it. And it's all semiconductors. And yeah, to your point, if you look at semiconductors as a percentage of The S&P 500, it was 10% two years ago. It's now 17%, which is very reminiscent. You'll remember this. Do you remember back in 2007, 2008, when everybody was running around talking about peak oil, how there wasn't going to be enough oil for everyone and oil was hitting 150 bucks. In 2006, it was 10% of the S&P 500. And then it spiked to 16% of the S&P 500 a couple years later before it all rolled over with the 2008 crisis. So there's, for me, as I look at semiconductors today, there's a strong sense of deja vu. If you go back to 2008, you had the mortgage crisis, it was already obvious banks were failing, et cetera, but everybody was telling you, you know what, forget that. Who cares about Bear Stearns, who cares about Citibank cutting its dividend, who cares about UBS doing the biggest rights issue in history? Whatever. Boring. The real story is peak oil. There won't be enough energy for everyone. All this other stuff doesn't matter. And energy kept ripping in the first half of 2008 even as the world was falling apart. And today I've got the sentiment of deja vu because everybody is running around saying, yeah, you know what? Energy, who cares? That's not where the story is. The story is AI. AI is going to change the world. And there's no way we can produce enough semiconductors to feed the world's AI needs. It's just, we just won't be able to keep up. And so this year Samsung Electronics will end up being the most profitable company in the history of capitalism. And people will point out that the Samsungs, the SK Hynix, the TSMs of this world are actually very attractively valued. They're trading sometimes at single digit pes, just like oil stocks back then were treating a single digit piece. Because people forget that cyclical businesses, capital intensive and cyclical businesses, you typically want to buy them when they have low price to book and very high pes. And you usually want to sell them when they have low pes and high price to books. That is the nature of cyclical businesses. And so you look at it and you're like, okay, either this is sort of, like I said, deja vu all over again. It's reminiscent of the 2008 peak oil boom. What am I missing? Why in April, did semiconductor stocks all of a sudden decide to go up 30%? Now, you mentioned in your question, I'm sorry to be long winded, but I think this is super important. You mentioned in your question the fact that we were starting to run out of steam in the first quarter of this year on the premise that, yes, electricity costs were going up. And you'll remember that there was like a referendum in Indiana and I think some other states when Trump was elected, reelected this last time around, where people were saying, you know what? We don't want data centers in our state. Having a data center here means that my electricity cost goes up and it doesn't create any jobs. So, thanks, but no thanks. No interest in having this in my neighborhood. And Trump's response to this was a fairly elegant one, to be fair. He said he immediately flew out. His very first trip was to Saudi Arabia, to the uae, to Qatar, where he not only picked up a plane, but he also picked up contracts for huge rollouts of data centers all across the Gulf states. And the idea was simple. These guys had cheap electricity, These guys had cheap solar, cheap natural gas. So let's put the data centers over there. And conceptually, you know, that made a lot of sense until Iranian drones and missiles started to fly. Then I think if you're, today, if you're Microsoft and Amazon, you're thinking, you know what? I probably don't want to build $20 billion data centers right next to Dubai, especially since I probably can't insure it. So I have no choice but to bring it home. And if I bring it home, then I'm left with, how do I produce cheap electricity? Now, there's a fairly obvious way to produce cheap electricity quickly and plentiful, and that would be to cover the whole of Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona with solar panels. And now, of course, you and I both know who would produce the solar panels. And that brings me to perhaps the reason why these things are these semiconductors are ripping higher. If we start off with the premise that the Iran war is an inflationary shock to the system, and right now there's no doubt it's going to be an inflationary shock to the system. Just on the back of gasoline, oil, heating oil, jet fuel, et cetera, inflation is going to go up by at least 1 percentage point in the coming readings. If we start with the fact that it is an inflationary shock, then you're left with the conclusion that Trump and Xi, who are scheduled to meet four times in the next 12 months, are kind of condemned to get along. They have to strike some kind of deal, and there's lots of deals they can strike because Trump desperately needs the rare earths and the magnets to replenish his weapons cupboard that has been emptied far faster than what he'd anticipated when he started this war. The first thing is he needs China to agree to sell the rare earths. That's number one. Number two, he actually probably needs the solar panels now in a way that he didn't before, and he needs them. And all the big tech are going to be lobbying for the solar panels. What he wants as well is China to revalue the renminbi. This has been a big demand of Treasury Secretary Besant, and I think Besant is absolutely right to argue for this since the renminbi is just. You and I have discussed this before, but it's, it's the wrongest price in the system. It's so stupidly undervalued. It's absolutely ridiculous. Now, interestingly, the renminbi is going up every day, which I think China is doing in anticipation of these meetings with Trump. The renminbi going up every day, incidentally, is sort of a departure from traditional policy at the Chinese central bank. Usually when you have uncertainty in the world in the past, they always freeze the value of the currency. This time they're letting it go up. Now, what would China want out of all of this? I think it's pretty obvious what China wants. China wants the lithography machines. It wants basically from asml, from Tokyo Electron, and it probably wants the high end chips as well. Is there a deal to be struck where China sells the US what the US needs? The US agrees that China can get high end semiconductors. I'm not saying that this is going to happen, but perhaps that's why the semiconductor stocks are absolutely ripping. It's all quite speculative and to be very clear, I'm not participating. I mean, I own some Samsung Electronics, but that's pretty much the only one I own. And again, I think Samsung is going to be the biggest, most profitable company that's ever been this year. And I don't think it's Fully priced in for that yet for these kinds of headlines. But maybe the market, as I look at the way the markets have behaved in April, essentially saying, yeah, energy, whatever. S and P energy stocks were down 2% in April and semiconductor's up 30. Either the market is completely delusional and is back to, oh, well, the only thing that matters is AI. And note that the AI propaganda on the media is absolutely relentless, right? It's constantly, oh, AI is going to replace half the jobs out there. This is the most important macro trend, et cetera. It's absolutely relentless. So maybe that's just the simplest explanation. We have market participants that are like goldfish in a fishbowl that just play one chess move ahead. Or perhaps the market is sensing that you're going to get a China US Deal that will be beneficial for Chinese rare earths, beneficial for solar panel manufacturers and beneficial for semiconductors everywhere.
- [28:48]
B
What do you think Trump could have lined up? He had a meeting with Xi Jinping then that seemed to get delayed at a time when nobody was really expecting it to be delayed. It almost feels like Trump wants to get to a certain point with the Iran conflict where he has more leverage to negotiate. I'm not sure what's going on. How do you read that, that situation with the upcoming summit between Trump and China?
- [29:14]
D
I think when Trump launched the offensive in Iran, I think he thought or was told by Netanyahu that it would be a one week deal, that he'd come in, that all he needed to do was kill Khamenei and 170 schoolgirls and that the regime would fall all by itself. Unfortunately, or that didn't happen and he ended up being stuck in an operation that's obviously taking a lot more time, taking a lot more attention, costing him a lot, a lot of political capital. He had to postpone the China trip because instead of rolling into China as the victor of Venezuela and Iran, he didn't want to roll in there while having to take phone calls about what was happening in Iran. He wants to be able to sit down with Xi and negotiate without that concern in the back of his head. Now, as it turns out, you know, he's going to have to go almost regardless. But, but incidentally, I think all these rumors that, oh, the war is going to start again, that we're going to get a second wave, the US Is moving more assets into the region. I think if something is going to happen, it's going to happen after the China visit. I think at this stage we're getting too close to the China visit for Trump to launch a new round of offensive. So that, I mean, I think that's the situation on the ground. I think that that's where we stand. And for different reasons, but mostly for. For domestic political reasons. Both Trump and Xi need a win out of these. Well, the summit that's coming up and then the next three following up. And by the way, I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but it's the first time in history that The Chinese and US president are scheduled to meet four times in 12 months. And again, I don't think they're meeting to discuss the World cup or the weather. There's a lot on the plate, a lot of things to discuss. I think FX policy is a big one, and that one is fairly obvious. Everyone's aligned on this. China wants a higher renminbi. The US wants a higher renminbi. It's the most undervalued currency in the world, but it's the currency with the strongest momentum today. You know, the way I work is I try to look for the easier trades. I have a bucket of easy trades and a bucket of hard trades. The easiest trade in the easy trade bucket is the renminbi moving up. Everybody wants it to happen. It is happening. And it's a trade with massive valuation tailwinds. So from there, unless the meetings go really bad between Trump and Xi, the obvious consequence, if the meeting goes well, then investors all across Asia will say, okay, meeting went well. Renminbi is now definitely structurally going up. So will the other Asian currencies. And I think that means that absolutely anything with any kind of yield in Asia gets bid up, even by local savings. Local savings that up until now have mostly been recycled into Max 7, into Bitcoin, into gold, into anything with momentum. All of a sudden, if you know that the renminbi is going to go up six and a half percent a year, which is what it just did in the past 12 months. If it is going to do 5 to 8% a year for the next three years, then you look at a lot of the local stocks that are yielding 6, 7%, you know, your Petrochinas, your China mobiles, some of the life insurance guys, et cetera, and you're like, okay, I can get 6% dividend yield, 6% on the currency, that's 12% without taking too much risk. That seems like a pretty attractive proposition. So I think the. In the easy trade bucket, it's Asian currencies going up, and anything with the yield in Asia gets rerated but going back to your question. Sorry to ramble on, but going back to your question, what happens in the meeting between Trump and Xi? First, I think the meeting happens, and secondly, I think they both need the meeting to go well. They both need domestic wins. So the incentive structure for things to happen and for things to go well are very much there.
- [33:09]
B
I very much agree with you on almost all of that. There's one dimension of it, though, that I just want to make sure I understood correctly, because the place we agree is Trump wants to go in from a position of strength. He doesn't want to be negotiating with Xi Jinping when things are falling apart in the Middle East. He wants to come in with, you know, we kicked ass in Venezuela, we kicked ass in Iran. We're the tough guys, you know, you better not mess with us. So I agree with you on that part. But you're saying, therefore, it's more likely that any further escalation in the Iran conflict would happen after a meeting with Xi. I would have interpreted it the other way, which is Trump is more likely to try to go for the Hail Mary and say, we got to get a win in Iran before I go meet with Xi. We can't go in, you know, from a position of weakness where we are now. We got to get a win first and try to get the win. And if he doesn't get the win, postpone the meeting again.
- [34:05]
D
That's possible. Like, it's Trump. Anything's possible. What I would say is the window of opportunity to get the win in Iran before the meeting is starting to close pretty quickly. If he was going to do it, he should have done it by now. Because unless the plan is to really bomb Iran to absolute smithereens, for which I'm not sure there is a political appetite Even in the U.S. you know, for literally, you know, is there the appetite for hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties? I, I want to hope that, that there isn't the appetite for that in the US for such a murderous type of, of action and behavior. And, and to be honest, if they did do that, if they went ahead and murdered hundreds of thousands of civilian population, then it probably wouldn't be Trump who would postpone the meeting. It would be she and say, look, in these conditions, I'm not like, you have blood on your hands. I'm not really keen to shake your hand, my dear president. So it's all this to say that it's, I think Trump actually needs. I take your point, he wants to come in strong, etc. But he actually needs this meeting now. Like, the US is getting to the point where they emptied the defensive armament cupboard. They really need the rare earths, they really need the magnets, and they really need some kind of solution on Iran. Now, incidentally, how do you get a solution on Iran? Option one is, yes, you bomb them to the Middle Ages, which Trump keeps threatening. The second option is you lean on the one country that does have influence in Iran, namely China, and you tell China, look, if you help us out here, you know, you sort Iran out, you reopen the straits for us, we can do stuff for you on semiconductors. We'll decide, actually, China is not the bad actor that we were saying it was, and we will help you on the semiconductor front, or we'll help you, maybe we'll allow BYD to open factories in the United States and open our car markets, so on and so forth. And so you could twist it around and say, does Trump care more about looking strong to the Chinese? Does he care more about looking strong to the American electorate six months before a midterm? If he cares more about looking strong to the American electorate six months before midterm, then actually he needs to go to China and he needs to cut a deal where he comes back and says, I got the Chinese to revalue the renminbi. I got them to buy a bunch of Boeings, I got them to buy a bunch of Nvidia chips. And they agreed because I asked them to sort out the Iranians, who are a pain in everybody's neck. So you can slice and dice that many ways. But for me, if really they were going to go militarily for Iran, I think the window to do it before the meeting is closing fast, because I don't think he wants to restart a war and have to be in Beijing as the war goes on.
- [37:08]
B
Well, it seems to me that the new risk for Trump is that the political opposition is really pushing, pushing pretty hard now for. You don't have congressional approval for this. You're at the 60 day mark. Trump's defense to that has been to say, no, no, no, the 60 days doesn't count because we're in a ceasefire. Well, as soon as we're not in a ceasefire, which, as we're recording this on, let's restart the clock Monday. Yeah, we're not in a ceasefire anymore. As far as I can tell, on Monday, things have started to heat up again. So he's got to do something in order to not have his political opposition in the US Shut the war down. On him. And so as you say, you know, we went from any export of Nvidia chips to China is absolutely embargoed because they're evil. Now Trump's got to make a trip to China and try to get a, you know, a salesman's commission on selling a bunch of Nvidia chips to China.
- [38:07]
D
That's right.
- [38:08]
B
That's the new twist.
- [38:09]
D
So I think that's one possible explanation for this face ripping rally in semiconductors. From 10% again of S&P 500, you
- [38:20]
B
think the market sees that Trump has no choice but to basically cave to China and say, okay, you can buy all you want.
- [38:27]
D
So the argument against this, again, I'm scratching my head. You try to put the puzzle pieces together. The argument against this is that if this is what the market was seeing, you would expect a better performance from Chinese equities. Right? And you really haven't seen it. Now, interestingly, if you look at the Chinese equity markets, the performance this year, you know, you had a great 24 for Chinese equities. You had a great 25 this year is disappointing. And what's been fascinating, what's been really disappointing has been all the big tech stocks, your Babas, your Tencents, your Baidu's, the meanwhile, the Chinese hardware names, the Catls, the BYDs, the Cambrian, the like, all those guys, they've done very well. So Chinese hardware has done well. Chinese Internet plays and other sort of telecom and media, et cetera, that's all really struggled. So in that respect, it actually hasn't been that different from the US where software stocks have gone crushed and hardware stocks have thrived. You've had the same dynamic in China. The big difference is that the hardware stocks in China are pretty much meaningless in the broader benchmarks. They're very, very tiny. And your babas and your 10 cents, et cetera, are massive. And all those names are down 15, 20% year to date. But I would imagine that if you know the scenario I painted where it's okay, the market is starting to price in the fact that the US and China can no longer trip each other up, that because of the Iran war, they're condemned to get along, they have to find a deal to curtail inflation, so on and so forth, that if that was the case, Chinese stocks should be doing better. If really we're on the verge of a big US China deal, then you would expect all the guys in the White House who seem to be front running every decision to be front running this one as well. By going out and buying Chinese equities. And so far there's been a little again, there's been good performance in things like catl, the biggest battery maker in the world. Maybe that's where the US China deals focus on, in the broader EV space, in the broader battery space, because that part of the market has actually done quite well. But so far I would say that the Chinese part of that equation isn't really giving a confirmation of the scenario I just made out.
- [40:55]
B
Louis, the most striking thing to me from this interview has been your comments going back 20 years or 21 years probably. It was almost exactly to the peak oil fears in the early mid 2000s. It was January of 2005 when Matt Simmons published the book Twilight in the Desert, which started a whole bunch of doomsday bloggers writing about a theory, a speculative possibility that we might run into a real oil crunch. And just that speculative blogging led to $147 oil. Inflation adjusted today, that's $212 oil in 2026 prices. That's what we saw in early 2008 just because some guy who was discredited by most of the serious people, Dan Jurgen, was making fun of Matt Simmons for that book back in the day. So a guy who was disc discredited by most of the serious oil traders writes a book and it leads to $147 oil prices. Now we have all of those same serious guys in the oil business who were making fun of Matt Simmons. They're circulating on Twitter that movie clip where Leonardo DiCaprio is talking about there's a Mount Everest sized comet hurtling toward the earth. We took a picture of it on radar. It's coming and you guys aren't taking this seriously. That's what the serious oil guys are saying now. And Street's like, yeah, but we could buy semiconductors. And you know, those oil guys are just talking their book. This seems to me like a setup. Really what it feels like to me is the COVID pandemic when everybody was ridiculing me and calling me a fear monger when I said there's a pandemic, global pandemic, coming in early February of 2020. And it took a month before the market finally figured out the obvious. Are we in another setup that's just like that?
- [42:59]
D
I think that's a distinct possibility, Eric. And I would say that the longer the Straits of Romeo stay closed, the more your Covid like scenario becomes credible. I think so far what has happened is that cars are still driving and planes are still flying. And we haven't really dealt with, with the possible shortages in the system because they haven't emerged for two reasons. First, there's a lot of buffers in the energy industry, so we could draw down these buffers. But now on our calculation, by early June, the buffers run out. So that's the first point. The second point I think is we haven't really hit shortages because the last boats that left the Gulf were still arriving at their destination by around mid April. If you left in late February, you were arriving in Australia or in the US or in Japan by early to mid April. And so it's now that all of a sudden nobody is showing up at the ports, right? That nobody's showing up at the refinery. It's now that we have to draw down on the inventories that have been built in the buffers in the system. That will take us to early June. But if by mid June the Strait of Hormuz is still closed, then yes, I think that this is when you start to hit panic moment. And again, I think when you look at the forward curve, the market is very much pricing in the idea that the Straits of Hormuz are going to reopen. So nothing to worry about. Let's keep going now. And I said it earlier, but I'm doubtful that it reopens so quickly because I don't see the incentive for Iran to reopen this so quickly, number one. And number two, there's also the sort of Damocles sword scenario, the nightmare scenario, that instead of just having the Straits of Hormuz closed, we go back to targeting each other's energy infrastructure. And if that happens, then, then it's a whole other can of worms. And then things get, get nasty very, very quickly because once you take out each other's energy infrastructure, even if the Straits of Hormuz reopening, it's not like things are back to normal, because they won't be. So I completely take your point that the downside scenario is actually quite scary. It is a scary scenario. And I think perhaps because it is such a scary scenario, just like your pandemic parallel, it's like, ah, you know what, I'd rather not think about it. This is like, this seems like doom mongering. It's like too scary, Forget it. The AI is the trade. Let's go back to AI that's more fun. Thinking of the end of the world, that's no fun. So let's just think of AI and how AI is going to be so exciting. So, yeah, I think There is a certain level of discomfort when you look at today's market behavior. Essentially, the clock is ticking. We probably still have the month of May to be okay. But if by the end of May things aren't open, then we're setting up for a pretty horrible summer.
- [46:00]
B
Now, I really wanna push back on that part of this. Cause this is the one place where I just don't understand the logic of the market. Almost everybody, I think, would agree with what you just said, which is, well, we've got maybe the month of May to be okay. But, you know, if we can get this resolved in the month of May, then things are gonna be okay because we don't run out of those buffers until early June. But here's the thing, Louis. We agree that in early June we're gonna run out of those buffers. If we've solved this, if we solved it tomorrow before this episode even airs on May 7, if Hormuz is totally solved and all the ships are flowing freely, it still takes six weeks for them to get where they need to be. And we're going to run out of the buffers in early June. So we need to have solved it. I would say past tense.
- [46:48]
D
We need to solve it now to
- [46:49]
B
have already been solved in order to avoid something utterly colossal starting in June. And everybody seems to be acting like, well, but yeah, if we solve this in May, then that won't happen in June. I think it's set to happen in June no matter what.
- [47:04]
D
So it's, look here, I'm going to sound terrible, but it's the old story of the rich do what they want and the poor suffer what they must. What's going to happen is the real victims, and it's already starting to emerge. But if there's not enough to go around, it's going to be the Sri Lankas, the Pakistans, the Kenyas of the Bolivias of this world that get cut off, first and foremost.
- [47:32]
B
Oh, so if millions of people starve to death, that's not really that significant to the S&P 500.
- [47:38]
D
This is what I said. I'm going to sound terrible. This is exactly what I meant. Like I said, I'm going to sound absolutely dreadful. But this is how the market is going to take it. It's going to be, you know, what, if there's no electricity in Manila, do I really care? And I think that's the mentality right now. And look, I'm not saying this is awesome. And again, I'm an EM guy. So for us, it's much more problematic. But I think that's, that's, that's the, perhaps that explains the S&P's behavior today where it's like, yeah, you know what? Yep. I'm very sad for people in Sri Lanka. But anyway, what are Apple's earnings? Because that's what matters to me. All this to say that if it reopens now, I agree with you that we're still set up for some dislocations in June and July, but those dislocations will happen in the poorer markets first and foremost. And either way, though, I would say that right now, as things stand debating whether if we reopen now, whether it will be okay in June, et cetera, it might be just a specious debate because we're not reopening right now. And it doesn't look to me as if there's any attempt at diplomacy in the United States because this thing is only going to get solved through diplomacy. And it doesn't really look like there's genuine attempts at the US at diplomacy. The way the US Is conducting diplomacy is through a long list of demands that are equivalent to essentially Versailles in 1919 where we told the Germans, this is it, sign here, here and here, as if Iran had been thoroughly defeated in the field. But Iran doesn't believe it has been thoroughly defeated in the field. Iran believes its position is strong. Iran doesn't feel it's negotiating from a position of weakness. And so I think that you must have seen this many times in your lives, either people going through divorces or people going through fights with business partners or whatever. The worst results in negotiations happen when both sides are A self righteous and B, believe that they're in a stronger position than they really are because the willingness to compromise is then not there. And that's when you get bad outcomes all around. And to me it seems like we're still there in the Iran US Situation where both sides believe they're very much in the right, that the other side is profoundly evil, talks about things in very Manichaean term of good versus evil. And both sides very much believe that they actually have the upper hand. And so if that's the case, it's pretty hard to reach compromises on anything you and I could debate. Oh, but look, if we reopen now, what's going to be the impact, etc. The reality is we're not reopening now, so that's what matters.
- [50:29]
B
What happens if Trump gets his war making abilities taken away from him because of this 60 day rule? What if he loses, and Supreme Court says, look, without congressional approval, you have to stop. Does Iran open the strait at that point with a toll, or do they just say, haha, we won and we control the global energy infrastructure from now on?
- [50:52]
D
Oh, I think Iran says, yeah, you want to go through the straits, it'll be 2 million bucks at that point. I think the bull then moves to Saudi Arabia. The question becomes, does Saudi Arabia want to pay 2 million bucks a ship? Does the UAE want to pay 2 million bucks a ship? 2 million bucks that go straight into the pockets of the irgc? Now, if you're the uae, by the way, the UAE leaving OPEC and essentially thumbing their nose at Saudi Arabia strikes me as somewhat odd of an odd move because essentially UAE is saying, we here they are. You look at a map, they're stuck in between Iran and Saudi Arabia. They're in a fight with Iran right now. UAE has received about three times as many missiles and drone hits as Israel. So they're in a fight with Iran and they pick this precise moment to pick a fight with Saudi Arabia. It's kind of mind blowing to me where it's like the parallel I would use is, you know, in World War I, when Germany invaded Belgium and if Belgium had turned around and decided to thumb their nose at France, I think when you're in a fight, typically you want to look for friends rather than make new enemies. And what's particularly surprising now I get Saudi Arabia's UAE's point. It's like, well, we're going to need to rebuild after this. So we, you know, we got to go, we want to produce 5 million barrels a day. We don't want to produce three and a half. But how are those barrels going to move? Are you going to move them by ship? Then you're going to have to pay Iran, or are you going to move them to pipeline through pipeline? And then you're going to be fully dependent on Saudi Arabia. So you're going to be dependent on somebody. Given your geography, why would you say stub your nose at both? To me, it's a little surprising. Anyways, to answer your question, if the US Congress decides to tell Trump, okay, this war's over, you've had your fun. This has been a disaster diplomatically. It's been a disaster for the image of the U.S. and the world. It's been a disaster for the U.S. consumer. It's been a disaster for the US military. We've spent all of our weapons for really no concrete outcome. So we've done all this. So now you're. Now you're done, you're out. You can't do this anymore. I think the bulk then falls into Saudi Arabia. Does Saudi Arabia decide, you know what, I don't want to pay Iran, so I'm only going to produce 5 million barrels a day and ship them out through the Red Sea, and that's that. Not only that, but I don't really have an incentive to move the UAE oil. You know what? UAE, you might want to produce 5 million barrels. If you want to produce 5 million barrels, you have to pay the IRGC their 2 million. And the UAE is way more against the IRGC than Saudi Arabia. So politically, it's going to be very hard for the UAE to say, yeah, fine, we'll pay 2 million bucks a ship to Iran. Will they want to do it? So you're still left then on the other side, if I'm Saudi Arabia, if I'm MBS, I'm saying, you know what? I'd rather sell 5 million barrels at 150 than 8 million barrels at 60 bucks, thank you very much. I'll just do that. And you might say, well, that's going to really piss off the U.S. but by that point, the U.S. doesn't have military bases in the Middle east anymore, and the US has just shown it doesn't have the willingness to defend the Middle East. So if you're mbs, do you still worry about what the US thinks? No, you just say, you know What? I'll sell 5 million barrels at 150 bucks and leave it at that.
- [54:18]
B
Well, Louis, I can't thank you enough for another terrific interview. I always really enjoy our conversations. Before I let you go, tell us a little bit more about what you do at Gavcal, how people can find out more about what's on offer there, particularly for our institutional audience, since you are an institutional advisory firm, as well as how to follow your work generally.
- [54:37]
D
Thanks. Look, Eric, I always enjoy our chats. It always helps me crystallize a lot of my own thinking. So really, thanks for having me on. Thanks for all the interviews that you did in the past few weeks. It's really helped me think through a lot of issues, and I think you had some great guests in the past few weeks. So thanks a bunch. Anyway, for me, yeah, the best place is our own website. It's gavcal.com g a v e k l. We really do three things. We publish research for institutional investors. We manage a series of funds, mostly Asian focused funds, so Asian equities, Chinese fixed income, Chinese distressed debt. And we also have a private wealth business run out of Bellevue for the US for US clients and run out of Mauritius for offshore clients and Hong Kong where our headquarters is. So if any of your listeners come through Hong Kong, they should feel free to reach out. Always happy to meet new people. Best place to find out is gafcal.com I am on X. I'll post the occasional thing, but I'll post every now and then a paper that I've either liked or that clients have asked me to unlock. So don't hesitate to follow me on
- [55:48]
B
X. Patrick Ceresna and I will be back as Macro Voices continues right here@macrovoices.com.
- [56:00]
A
Now back to your hosts Eric Townsend and Patrick Ceresna.
- [56:04]
C
Eric, it was great to have Louie back on the show. Now listeners, you're going to find the download link for this week's Trade of the Week in your Research Roundup email. If you don't have a Research Roundup email, it means you have not yet registered@macrovoices.com just go to our homepage and look for the red button over Jim Bianco's picture saying looking for the download
- [56:26]
B
Patrick for this week's Trade of the Week, Louis Gav argued that this isn't just an energy shock, but the beginning of a broader shift towards strategic commodity stockpiling across energy, agriculture and industrial inputs. So how do you position for that theme without simply chasing the latest headline spike?
- [56:45]
C
Now, Louis argument is that this isn't simply an oil story, it's a broader wake up call that the countries and corporations can no longer rely on just in time supply chains or financial reserves alone to guarantee access to essential commodities. As a result, Louis suggests we are entering a new phase where strategic stockpiling of physical commodities, everything from energy and fertilizers to industrial metals and agricultural inputs, becomes a structural trend rather than a temporary reaction to geopolitical headlines. So rather than chasing short term price spikes in one isolated commodity, this trade is about positioning for that broader rebuild in physical inventories across the commodity complex through the Invesco DB Commodity Index Tracking Fund ticker dbc, which provides diversified exposure across the commodity space. Now what makes this setup particularly interesting is that much of DBC's rally this year has been driven by its heavy oil exposure, with roughly one third of the ETF tied to WTI and Brent crude futures. That has helped drive the ETF to gains of as much as roughly 41% year to date at the peak. But it also leaves the trade highly sensitive to every headline surrounding the Strait of Hormuz and the Iran conflict. A credible peace deal or a de escalation could easily trigger a short term pullback in crude oil prices, creating downside pressure on the dbc, even if Louis Gav's broader commodity stockpiling thesis remains intact. And that's why, rather than taking outright linear exposure through the ETF itself, I want to introduce convexity into the structure to maintain upside participation in longer term commodity story while better defining downside risk if the geopolitical premium temporarily unwinds from a trade construction standpoint. Rather than taking outright exposure in the ETF itself, I want to express the view through a longer dated call option on the DBC to introduce convexity and define downside risk. With the DBC trading around 29.80, the structure uses the January 15, 2027 $30 strike call option with roughly 253 days to expiration trading around $3. The objective is to maintain upside participation if the broader commodity stockpiling thesis continues to unfold while limiting downside exposure. If short term geopolitical de escalation triggers a pullback in crude oil and the broader commodity complex, the result is a defined risk way of participating in the longer term commodity stockpiling theme without needing to absorb the full volatility of the underlying etf.
- [59:40]
B
Patrick Every Monday at Big Picture Trading, your webinar explains how retail investors can put on our most recent trade of the week. For those listeners that want to explore how to put on these trades in greater detail, don't miss out on a 14 day free trial@bigpicturetrading.com now let's dive into the post game chart.
- [59:58]
C
Dick all right, Eric, let's dive into these equities.
- [60:01]
B
Patrick One thing's clear. This market is rallying and rallying strong, even if it's on still unconfirmed rumors that a peace deal might be in the works. So it seems that only outright disaster is going to stop this S and P rally. But the broader market is still seeing plenty of new lows, so breadth is the big thing that's missing from this rally. I used the Big Move higher on S and P futures in the early hours of Wednesday morning to add to my downside hedges. Now obviously that position has already moved against me as the rally has continued even higher since then, but frankly, I have no regrets. I'm glad to be hedged in these uncertain times, and I think the fog of war, frankly just got thicker. What I mean by that is President Trump is now past the 60 day rule. He's not supposed to have any kind of foreign conflict without congressional approval that goes beyond 60 days. Well, if we're past 60 days, what the Trump administration has been relying on is their dubious contention that, well, since we have a ceasefire on the 60 days doesn't count because the ceasefire began before the 60 days was up. Well, if that's the story, and that's the story they're sticking to, they gotta continue to pretend that there's a ceasefire on whether there really is or there really isn't because otherwise they have a congressional oversight violation that they have to contend with. So I think it's going to be even less certain as we move forward exactly what the situation is. In the case of Wednesday's news, which collapsed crude oil futures that only lasted a few hours before Iran basically said no, we don't agree to all of that and we don't think that the terms are reasonable. Now, despite the fact that Iran basically said nah, didn't really happen, the market didn't even come close to a full retracement. So there's still plenty of hope in the system. I'm just not sure exactly why.
- [62:04]
C
Well Eric, what is clear to me is that the broader intermarkets do care about what is happening in Iran and its impact is on oil and interest rates, inflation expectations, bonds and so on. But right now the equity markets are marching to the beat of the own drum driven by this new parabolic rise in the semiconductor index. We just simply have not seen this type of burst higher. Going back through, you know, a five year look back, this has just been an extraordinary rip on the upside. This is a very thin market. We continue to have the breath of the market remain sticky around 50, 55% which means half of stocks are in a downtrend. We don't have any broad buying happening here. Even the Mag 7s as an index have not been able to make 52 week highs while obviously a few components like Google have certainly been able to clear that hurdle. The bottom line here is, is that the semiconductors are the ones that are the generals that are driving this. Now we are seeing some extraordinary moves including in the South Korean Cosby, everything has gone full parabolic on the upside and inevitably all parabolic moves have blow off tops and mean reversion. And I think that the story of the S and P is going to be at this point linked to this. Now will we have a broadening of the breadth, will we see sector rotation once we see some sort of a short term Blow off those. Those are the puzzles to solve to determine what's next for the S and P. At this moment though, the s and P500 again it seems to be just marching to the beat of its own drum and not being driven by the Mac geopolitical circumstances. All right, let's move on to the dollar here.
- [63:58]
B
The gradual decay in the dollar index on Peace Hopium confirms my view that when the Iran conflict is really and truly over, the next move for the dollar is going to be down. The thing is, I still am not persuaded that it's over and we still have a big unfilled gap on the chart all the way up to 99, spot 39 on the Dixie, which is now well above the market market.
- [64:22]
C
While the US dollar remains range bound. The story definitely is about the intervention with the yen. We had a material turn higher and the big question here, are we going to see some a big yen move and what kind of an impact will that have? At the same time we're seeing that the headlines about a potential de escalation certainly popped. The euro, not only in the euro stock stocks but also the currency and so on all react to a potential de escalation. So that puts the dollar in a bit of a muddle and certainly vulnerable for actually trading back to the bottom end of that trade range. Not super bearish the dollar, but I don't see any immediate catalyst. The dollar going higher was very much a risk off kind of scenario and that simply has not materialized in spite of the escalation in Iran. All right Eric, let's touch on crude oil here.
- [65:20]
B
Here. The big price collapse came on an Axios report that a deal for a permanent reopening of the strait was finally on the table and the parties were just inches away from final agreement. Should be out within the hour. Except then a few hours later Iran refuted that and said that they didn't think that the terms being proposed were realistic or likely to go anywhere. Interestingly, we only saw a partial upside retracement after Iran refuted the original report. I don't see a deal coming together, at least not yet. Trump has been absolutely adamant that he will not tolerate Iran having a nuclear weapon or having an intact nuclear weapons program. Iran on the other hand, has been absolutely adamant that they're not willing to give up their enriched nuclear material. So it seems like they've got irreconcilable differences on the other side of that coin. Both sides in my opinion are losing staying power. Trump is past his 60 day limit with no congressional approval. So he has to at least pretend that a ceasefire is still in play, whether or not that's really true, because he doesn't have another good explanation for why he's beyond the 60 days and still hasn't obtained congressional approval. And we're finally reaching the point where Iran really is running out of time, as has been alleged several times previously. Previously. The blockade, as long as it stays in place, really is having a crippling effect on Iran's economy. And it's starting to come into serious question as to how long they can last. So both sides are really being tested on their staying power. They had both, I think, been overconfident in their ability to outlast the other side. I think they're now both getting a dose of reality and I'm not sure who's going to crack first. But at this point, I don't see them coming together and kissing and making up. I think we still have a ways to go on this and I won't be surprised if there's another cycle higher on crude oil prices now. To be sure. This will be over someday. And when it is, crude oil prices will come down and probably come down dramatically, at least at first because of the UAE's move to come out of OPEC. Everybody is expecting UAE to overproduce, but that's when we actually get the strait opened again. And I, I don't think we're there yet.
- [67:48]
C
Well, Eric, it is clear that the front end of the curve is going to be highly sensitive to the next headline coming in. This is where I want to continue to turn my attention, going a little farther out on the term structure and looking at for instance, crude oil where it's trading at the end of the year. This is a little bit less volatile and will and generally is where we'll see some buoyancy as there's going to be logistical problems with moving oil and it's going to take much of the year to resolve itself, including potentially countries spending a lot of time replenishing inventories and strategic reserves. This is going to be the question as to, in my mind as to even if there is this short term drop in the front months or a huge rip in the front months, what will happen to the longer dated contracts and where's the longer term fair price of oil going to settle from all of the logistical issues and supply disruptions? All right, Eric, let's move on to gold here.
- [68:53]
B
Well, I've really been bitten by Murphy's Law this week. Gold is back. Well, above 47.30, which is where I de risked my gold position last week. It had gotten down all the way to 45.20 so it was more than 200 bucks. I guess I made the right decision at first. But the unexpected news on Wednesday of a supposed ceasefire deal being imminently in the works is very much behind the collapse in crude oil prices and the brisk rally higher in gold prices. I have not re risked my gold position, however, because I'm not persuaded that this is over yet. I think we're operating on Hopium here now to be sure. Both the stock market and the gold market are rallying and rallying strong and maybe I'll be left behind, but I'm not gonna get whipsawed here. And it feels to me like this is not really over. We'll see what the market will be bring.
- [69:49]
C
Well, what is clear to me, Eric, here is that gold remains highly sensitive to rates in oil. As oil moves, rates move and gold responds. And so the, the path of gold here I think is going to be a broader geopolitical and macro story. If we see again another pivot on whether or not there's going to be a peace deal, then gold can very quickly just give back all of these gains. At this stage, that long term gold bull thesis is going to have to wait till everything settles in and this consolidation fin before we can see some structural bullishness or Eric, what are your thoughts here on uranium?
- [70:26]
B
Well, we saw a big surge higher in sympathy with broader market strength on war ending propaganda, rumors, whatever you want to call it. I am not at all persuaded that that's over. And if we do see a move lower in stocks, at least temporarily, it will take uranium down with it. Frankly, I would welcome that as a buying opportunity because I think what we're seeing now is that it's very clear that when this Iran conflic is over, both the broader market and uranium are headed higher and probably much higher. So I'll welcome an opportunity to buy the dip if we get one. But for now the market's looking really strong and we've got big news for people who followed me into the investment in Alo Atomics, the company that Matt Lozak runs. Matt was interviewed here on Macro voices on our March 5 episode. Alo has had their DSA approved. The DSA is essentially the operating license from the Department of Energy to run their reactor. It basically allows them to now turn it on. This is the reactor that they built in just 40 days. This company is amazing in terms of how quickly they get things accomplished. I wrote a whole substack piece called the race to reactor 53 that's on my sub stack. It's linked in your Research Roundup email. You can read all the details there, but the gist of it is there There are several companies racing to become the new first of a kind nuclear reactor to be taken critical at the Idaho national laboratory in almost 50 years. It's actually 49 and a half years since in 1977 the last nuclear reactor was taken live before the NRC started standing in the way of progress, quite frankly. So the whole story is on my substack. You'll find it linked in research related Roundup the reason this is of particular interest to those of you who invested in ALO after Matt's interview is you would have invested at a $2 billion company valuation cap in either the SAFE or the SPV round that followed that Macro Voices interview. Both of those rounds are closed and will not be reopened, so it's too late for those. But already after the DSA news, there was so much new investor interest that has now launched a new SPV round that they're going to conduct before their Series C, and that's at a $3 billion valuation cap. So that means, effectively assuming that you count an up round as a mark to market event, those of you who invested at a $2 billion valuation are already up 50% on the investment that you made a month ago. And expectations are for an even higher Series C pre money valuation because it's very likely that the company will achieve that goal whether or not they actually become the 53rd reactor, the first of several companies that's competing to cross that finish line before July 4th. It's not really certain they've got some stiff competition, but I don't think that matters, frankly. Who's first. What matters is that before the Series C is priced, they've evidenced criticality and they've brought a first of a kind reactor critical at the Idaho National Laboratory. I do expect that to happen before July 4th and before their Series C is priced. And that means we'll probably have yet another UP round and a further increase, although it's not liquid yet. Our unrealized gain in this rather exciting investment. So that's the update and congratulations to those of you who invested in the company.
- [74:17]
C
Company well Eric, uranium remains very quiet and inactive. It's certainly not getting the attention and nor is it getting huge geopolitical swings and at some stage this market will wake up again. But right now this is not drawing the attention of investors, but what is is copper. I wanted to just have a quick look on that Copper chart which I have on page eight and what we see here is consolidation back to its 50 day moving average. We have a clear attempt to break to fresh new highs. Now while Copper back in January did trade over 650 on the upside on an intraday basis, we are on a closing basis now back to 52 week highs. Is this breakout in copper real and will it follow through is certainly something that I'm going to be talking about with my members.
- [75:09]
B
Patrick, before we wrap up this week's podcast, let's hit that 10 year treasury note chart.
- [75:14]
D
Yeah.
- [75:14]
C
On that 10 year treasury yield, yields continue to have that direct correlation to crude oil. Crude Oil up yields yields up. Crude Oil down yields down. That right now has been working. It will eventually decouple. But right now in the heat of this geopolitical circumstances on an inner market basis, this correlation is driving it. So at this stage I wouldn't be trying to make a forecast independent of where the next move on crude oil is going to be.
- [75:42]
B
Folks, if you enjoy Patrick's chart decks, you can get them every single day of the week with a free trial of big picture trading. The details are on the last pages of the slide deck or just go to bigpicture trading.com Patrick tell them what they can expect to find in this week's Research Roundup.
- [75:56]
C
Well, in this week's Research Roundup you're going to find the transcript for today's interview as well as the trade of the week chart book we just discussed here in the post game, including a number of links to articles that we found interesting. You're going to find this link and so much more in this week's Research Roundup. That does it for this week's episode. We appreciate all the feedback and support we get from our listeners and we're always looking for suggestions on how we can make the program even better. Now for those of our listeners that write or blog about the markets and would like to share that content with our listeners, send us an email@researchroundupoices.com and we will consider it for our weekly distributions. If you have not already, follow our main account on X at Macro Voices for all the most recent updates and releases. You can also follow Eric on X xericstownsen that's Eric Spelt with a K. You can also follow me. Patrick Ceresna on behalf of Eric Townsend and myself, thank you for listening and we'll see you all next week.
- [77:05]
A
That concludes this edition of Macro Voices. Be sure to tune in each week to hear feature interviews with the brightest minds in finance and macroeconomics. Macro Voices is made possible by sponsorship from BigPictureTrading.com the Internet's premier source of online education for traders. Please visit bigpicturetrading.com for more information. Please register your free account@macrovoices.com Once registered, you'll receive our free weekly Research Round Roundup email containing links to supporting documents from our featured guests and the very best free financial content our volunteer research team could find on the Internet each week. You'll also gain access to our free listener discussion forums and research library. And the more registered users we have, the more we'll be able to recruit high profile feature interview guests for future programs. So please register your free account today@macrovoices.com if you haven't already. You can subscribe to Macro Voices on itunes to have Macro Voices automatically delivered to your mobile device each week, free of charge. You can email questions for the program to mailbagrovoices.com and we'll answer your questions on the air from time to time in our Mailbag segment. Macro Voices is presented for information, informational and entertainment purposes only. The information presented on Macro Voices should not be construed as investment advice. Always consult a licensed investment professional before making investment decisions. The views and opinions expressed on Macro Voices are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect those of the show's hosts or sponsors. Macro Voices, its producers, sponsors and and hosts Eric Townsend and Patrick Ceresna shall not be liable for losses resulting from investment decisions based on information or viewpoints presented on Macro Voices. Macro Voices is made possible by sponsorship from BigPicture Trading.com and by funding from Fourth Turning Capital Management, LLC. For more information, visit macrovoices.com
- [79:18]
D
SAM.