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The HC Commodities Podcast
Molecular Contagion with Jeff Currie
00:43:24
We have moved beyond the duration discussion. The damage has been done and the oil markets will not return to the ante-bellum state any time soon if ever. What happens when financial markets - both for oil and more broadly catch up to the physical reality? Molecule Contagion as our guest for this special episode Jeff Currie of Carlyle puts in. The revenge of the old economy just got teeth and the ramifications are being discounted at best and denied at worst. What are the longer term impacts of the events in the Gulf. Accelerating decoupling, de-dollarization and a shot in the arm for the energy transition. The only safety....HALO stocks.
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- [00:00]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Paul Chapman
Welcome to the HC Commodities Podcast, a podcast dedicated to the commodities sector and the people within it. I'm your host Paul Chapman. This podcast is produced by HC Group, a global search firm dedicated to the commodities sector. Jeff Curry Carlisle welcome back to the show. For an emergency podcast, as we're terming them, to do two things really. One is to get your current take on what's going on in the market and then secondly to start that process, which is very hard at these early stages, but to divine what do you think the medium and long term impacts of this are? Particularly in the context of our last conversation about the great repricing a rollover from infinitely scalable tech back into assets of recognition that perhaps we've underinvested in molecules in general. And as your recent piece on said, they can't be printed. So lots to discuss. But can we just start with the current events and I'd love to kind of know what are the key questions you're looking to get answered to inform your view on what's going on?
- [01:17]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
Well, I think there's two questions. One is how quickly and how much and for whom can you restore the flows in the Straits to and I think that the misperception is that the Straits are closed. They're not closed. Chinese barrels are flowing through them right now. So it's open to Chinese and now Indian barrels. And so the China block continues to be supplied, the US Block doesn't. And if we use what we learned in the Red Sea as an example, you never did see the flows fully restored. After two years of military action by the US against the Houthis. They could not reopen the Red Sea to western traffic. And if that were the case, you're Talking about a 5 to 10 million barrel per day disruption for a very long period of time. I think given the magnitude that you would find ways to get around it. SPR is a drop in the bucket. It's not going to do anything. And so when we look at this, that's the first question you're going to have to ask. I don't want to get in the speculation game on this. All I know you've already done so much damage and that's what's not being priced. If we think about the ability of the US to open this again. They were unable to open against the Houthis, but I just want to make so people have a visual on this. This is going up the other side of the strait's got hills, caves. It's a really treacherous, arduous task to be able to open this from a military perspective, it's not something you can bomb your way out of because ultimately you would end up bombing the strait. Somebody sinks a ship, somebody mines it, it's a really delicate situation. So let's just look beyond that and let's just ask how is the market ability to deal with this? And the answer is you're getting already by the time you're into this month of March, you're beginning to run on fumes. If you just look at all the glut that was out there, it was last year. Let's say you've built up relative to the lows of the 2019 through 2026 cycles, you've built out somewhere close to around 800 million barrels. I'm going to give that's what, you know, the biggest of the oil glut people put it at. You will have dusted that down to the 2022 lows in another week. And if this goes on for another month, you're down to minimum operating levels. So by the end of April, mid April, you're in a really serious, precarious situation unless something changes. And I think even if you had a ceasefire tomorrow, you've shut in wells all over the Gulf and the damage is substantial. You have refineries, gas fields. This morning about the pars field being hit. And I think we're up to 108 right now because the Iranians are saying gloves are off. And the fact that we're not at 108 and not 200 is mind boggling. And I think the other important point to watch that I'm focused on is the fiscal markets have disconnected from the financial markets. You know, oman traded yesterday 173. And even with the potential for gloves off, you're only at 108 on Brent right now. There's a huge disconnect. And I think the other issue is this thing is now spreading. I like to call it molecular contagion. And, and it's moving around the world. It's gone intercontinental. And so those are the key things I'm watching. So summarize it. What is the status of the Straits? I'm not a military tactician. I just go, they failed with the Houthis in the Red Sea. Why do you think they're going to be successful here? The Iranians are just playing the exact same playbook that the Houthis played for the past two years. Then the second issue is the question of your inventory coverage. The best you're likely to do is make it to the end of April with the most bearish of the oil supply glut scenarios out there. More likely than not, you're running into problems already in key product markets. Which brings me to the third issue, which is asking when are you going to see a convergence between the physical and the financial markets? And I think we're within days, you know, weeks of that convergence beginning to happen.
- [06:07]
Paul Chapman
The bit I find quite hard to understand, divine, as you say, is kind of that how much actual damage has been done to critical infrastructure, that will take a long time to fix. Right. And every day it emerges that that's more significant than we think, which plays into this. Why is that? Why is there this disconnect between the financial markets and the physical? Is that just how things work? And you've got a lot of different types of money on the financial side, maybe even the US treasury, but is that just complacency or what's going on there in your mind?
- [06:39]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
You know, I think it's denial by investors because it's so bad they can't believe that could happen. But I think the ability to avoid it happening, I think is relatively low. And by the way, we see this at every Crisis. Think about COVID It was January of 2020, and I think you and I, I actually think you and I did a podcast back then. January of 2020, in China's blowing up. Very clear. The second largest economy in the world
- [07:14]
Paul Chapman
is blowing up, but it took three, two and a half months. So it was almost 12, 10 weeks before actually you had that market reaction in the S&P 500.
- [07:25]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
Actually it was. Yeah, it was by March 23rd, they were injecting QE. Remember that day? Very vividly. But actually, let's talk about COVID because it's a great starting point because the size of this shock is about the same size as the COVID shock, but it's a supply shock as opposed to a demand shock. Think about that. The demand shock, the initial big one was 20 million barrels per day. This one is a 20 million barrel per day supply shock. They're about the same size, they're a mirror image of one another. And I like to remind everybody, once you exhausted storage capacity, which is the ability to lend barrels into the future, you had to bring demand down in line with or supply down in line with demand. So it was the opposite problem. Demand was low, supply was high, and you had to crush supply down in line with demand. And how did you accomplish that? A minus $37 a barrel price print. Then we go to the other side. Currently it's a now you have a 20 million barrel per day supply shock and demand is above supply. Now you need to bring demand down in line with supply once you run out of inventory. So you know, you think about how do you borrow barrels from the future? It's through inventory. Just like in the COVID you were lending barrels to the future. Here you're borrowing barrels and once you exhaust your borrowing capacity, it's game over. You have to bring demand down in line with supply. It's just a physical reality. You cannot print molecules. The point I was saying is yes, you can print money, you can print bonds, but molecules you can't. Central banks have unlimited liquidity in the oil market. Once your storage is gone, that's it, you're done with your liquidity. It's game over. And I don't think people understand that. There is no policy fix here that can deal with that problem other than getting that supply back online. And that's going to take a long time.
- [09:25]
Paul Chapman
Yeah. What does that convergence look like in your mind? I mean there is obviously that, I guess that molecule contagion, it could be quite an acceleratory force to price across the board. Right.
- [09:40]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
I think we're in the process of pricing it right now and I think that the. And unfortunately, I think there's a belief in the United States that they're immune to this because of energy dominance. That is true at the cash flow level. At the income level in the United States, they produce about the same they consume. The reality is at the wealth level, they're far from immune to this. At the wealth level, they're very much exposed because the United States equity market is not a local US Market. It is a global market for the rest of the world. All those Mag 7 companies have earnings that come out of Europe, Asia and the rest of the world. And once you see those other parts of the world get hit, it's going to have a significant impact on the earnings of those companies and it'll have. So you can think about the fact of the matter is yes, the US as a domestic economy is insulated by energy dominance, but at the wealth level it's really exposed.
- [10:41]
Paul Chapman
It's not even at the energy dominance level. I mean it is natural gas, which in some ways is a bigger story than oil, but actually, you know, still the same again. It's connected to an oil, a global oil market unless it shuts itself off from that, which it can't do because it obviously needs to buy heavy crudes to fill its Refineries rather than the light crudes that the energy dominance is underpinned on that complacency, that sort of. Or that sort of denial as you described it, which seems to be going on both in the S&P 500, which really hasn't skipped a beat whatsoever. Yeah, alongside actually oil prices as well. Yes, they've gone up by a significant amount, but nowhere near as you point to the level that would cause real demand destruction. And that's before you get to that molecule contagion as you spoke about in your mind. Can you just give us some sense of the magnitude that this could be? And I know it is tied to duration, but even at this point we're three weeks in critical. Infrastructure has been hit. The northern shore of the strait is, as you say, pockmarked by caves and scrub. You know, all you need is one short range drone to do the damage. I mean it just seems that the, you know, if the magnitude is Covid, then we are talking 20, 30% drops in the S&P 500. And as you say, the equivalent to the other side of minus $37 a barrel, which looks more like that 200 level.
- [12:05]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
Yeah. I don't want to get into the speculation how high this thing can go, but the reality is this is going to be unlike anything you have ever seen before. Just like Covid was unlike anything you had seen before. The impact on global supply chains is going to be significant and it's going to be much more painful this way than it's more painful to have supply come down than demand come down. Why? It's because you're shutting in production. When demand comes down on supply, you just cap a. Well, this on the other hand, with supply pulling demand out of the system, think about all of the cascading effects through global supply chains. Plastics, fertilizers, jet fuel, trucking, the list goes on and on. And they're thinking, oh, it's going to be in Thailand or Philippines. And then you impact everything that the Philippines produce that goes into the United States. This is going to be unlike anything we've ever witnessed.
- [13:06]
Paul Chapman
Yeah.
- [13:06]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
And by the way, this seems to me, I always like to say, if the story is not so simple that Eddie Murphy can tell it on Trading Places, then it's probably not right. By the way, I'm pretty sure Eddie Murphy could give you the full chain reaction about what's going on here. Which is why I'm utterly baffled that the global equity markets are choosing to ignore this because it is something that is going to Be the common thing is like we're more immune today. It's going to be nothing like the seven. Actually, you're more exposed today than you were in the 70s because the only thing you use oil for is critical demand. You don't. It's like think about in the 70s, oh, I could switch out of my big GTO into a Toyota or Datsun. That's what created the Japanese auto market. I can start to walk, I can take the train, I can switch a generator out of diesel into gas. I had all those options available to me. I don't have those options this time around. This time around, it's petrochemicals, it's fertilizers. The impact is going to be significant. I think agriculture probably provides one of the best hedges to what's going on right now because it's the one that has not yet moved. You've seen the metal space move, you've seen the energy space now move. The one that has remained dormant is agriculture. And the impact here is probably very significant. One, you have the channel through fertilizers, but don't Forget through the LPGs you end up impacting synthetic fibers, more demand for cotton, right. When you have the planting season for soybeans and corn and you're likely to see a rotation towards something that competes with the oil space. And then you have the impact through ethanol, sugar, corn and the rest of it. So I view that the space that is the least impacted right now, with the most upside to cat, it's a ketchup trade, would be agriculture.
- [15:08]
Paul Chapman
I think we, we've established the, the magnitude. You certainly scared the, the heck out of me and I don't know how to short sell, so I'm just, I'm stuck where I am and you know, all the rest of it. But the, I want to sort of move on to some of the, the medium to longer term impacts of this. And I know this is hard to divide, but let's start with, let's start with Europe and more broadly, kind of this deglobalization that you and I have spoken of over time, right, which is going on, and the blockatization into kind of a China bloc, a US block and so forth. Is it too far fetched to say at some point Europe is staring at not buying diesel from India? I'm making this very prosaic, but off the back of podcast that came out yesterday because it's sanctioned and so forth and at the same time Iran saying, hey look, we'll let your ships through if you Do X, Y disavow this operation and and don't allow support? I mean at what point there is a scenario where actually this accelerates the isolation of the US as a rogue actor in the minds of the rest of the world and further pushes Europe into China's hands. I mean I know that's quite a big thing, but where do you sit on that?
- [16:23]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
Oh, I think we've already witnessed that with gold. Gold was pricing this de dollarization as fears of having exposure to the US through and sanctions. They've moved out of dollar denominated products and moved into things like gold. So we've already witnessed this rotation away from the US and towards you know, the unidentified central bank or the, you know, it's more than you know, the people own gold because they actually determined that crypto actually does leave a footprint as it is controlled by the governments that ultimately gold is that best hedge against fiat currency. And another way to say it of losing control your own actually let me think about the term. They don't want to lose control of their own destiny so they buy gold by not having dollar exposure. You can think about what's going on in energy is that they may not turn to China but they're going to try to do it on themselves. And that really brings in the whole idea of clean energy. And I don't think we call it clean tech. Pre2015 it was called SecureTech probably because ultimately renewables in nuclear were born out of the 1973 oil embargo. You look at energy transition. Energy transition did not focus on the environment. It focused on secure energy in the Maslow sense. Build a secure base and then pursue the higher needs. Maslow's hierarchy needs were fear, greed and compassion. And you have to control the fear first. And building a secure base is the critical one. And at the foundation has to be secure energy. And Europe in particular is very exposed right now. I think you saw Italy restarting nuclear power plants and you have seen likely you're going to see a focus on the North Sea as not being a sunset industry but a energy security industry. And I think that that's they'll try their hardest not to be sucked into the petro yuan world. But I think that the immediate response is what you saw in gold was take your own destiny into your own hands by owning gold and not being exposed to anybody's central bank. And what we're seeing right now, people are going to try to do it or countries and states are going to try to do it with energy as
- [19:07]
Paul Chapman
well, yeah, I mean, I definitely think, in fact, our colleagues over at Hyperion Search are writing a piece on this is the, this is certainly going to accelerate the energy transition for non hydrocarbon producing nations or indeed non hydrocarbon processing nations. But instead of it being about the green attributes, it is going to be about that security piece. Yeah, that, that all ties back to the, you know, at the same time you're strengthening your China. And it's fascinating. I want to get your take on this as well. Let's do it. Now, why is China not using its Strategic Petroleum Reserve? Is that about the scariest thing we could hear on Earth?
- [19:42]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
But they have built up a lot of inventory that allows them to ride this out. But let's not forget, you take Iran in Russia, in Venezuela, we did this analysis. Actually, I think the last time we did this is that China is pretty close to being energy independent when you take in all of its satellites. It's dominant on metals and nearly energy independent when you bring in Russia, Iran, Venezuela, countries in Africa in which they're very close to. So they're looking at this, they can ride it out. And I think there's a lack of recognition that China is in a position to ride this out. And in the end, they produce all of the clean tech. It's like I look at what happened with COVID who was the biggest benefactor of it, it was China. I don't want to get into conspiracy theories that they didn't cause it because they benefited. When you look at a wedge between Chinese manufacturing in US, Europe, did you know that wedge since COVID has grown by 50%, 50% the manufacturing capabilities of China, now what do they build? They built all that. Call it clean tech, for lack of better word. Renewables, batteries, EVs. And with this type of oil shock, wow, who has all the goods that are perfect to meet the lack of oil? So I look at China, they're in a very good position right here. And of course they're in. You look at, okay, you know, their ability to ride this out. When Trump asked them to bring their warships to deal with this, everybody assumes they're the one that's most exposed. They are the most exposed. But let's not forget they're getting their oil right now. They're not. They don't have a problem. Why would they use their, their battleships? Open it. They don't have a problem. The west has a problem. And I think which actually then begs the question is the US Must know that. Then why did they do that? I would guess Surmise one of the reasons could potentially be they're likely to impose export bans. We'll see what happens in the coming days. But there is a point that's just not widely recognized out there is China is getting their oil not at the same level. They used to be taking about 2.5 million barrels per day out of the Strait. Now they're taking around 1.25.
- [22:11]
Paul Chapman
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- [22:54]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
Right.
- [22:54]
Paul Chapman
So again this leads back to this, you know the, the de globalization bit and that molecule contagion you're talking of which is we could suddenly see a proliferation of export bans of products in Asia. But yeah, what happens when the US because the one thing we know is the only thing the US administration cares about is domestic politics at this point with the midterms and shutting in oil, shutting in natural gas is a solution to rampant inflation. And suddenly in the words of Pat Bondi for the Dow not being at 50,000.
- [23:28]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
Yep, the. But I'd be very cautious about shutting the, the exports because the channel US gasoline prices off Brent. I mean Brent will just explode under that scenario. And then you got to think about the ramifications to the US if they were to employ I see the export band because it would not be viewed favorably that the they go in, attack Iran and the Straits get shut, they go home and do export bans. It's not a good look.
- [24:07]
Paul Chapman
This is the second order ramifications of this is how do the commodity markets maintain and survive what could be a huge period of government intervention and disruption and also lowering efficiency as people build up stocks and all the rest of it. That's probably not worth thinking of right now. But yeah, I definitely think banning exports by the US would be catastrophic. But staying on that rather pessimistic sort of US decline aspect, this presumably also accelerates that narrative twofold. One is you have dollar dominance because you have military dominance. If it's perceived that that military dominance is contingent on ally support is actually in a world of drones and low Cost equipment is big, capital assets no longer pertain to supporting it. And also at the same time, obviously China strength and China say oh, you can settle your barrels in yuan and so forth. Does this accelerate that the de dollarizations this accelerate? I mean US perceived decline. I mean again, it doesn't seem particularly positive. And you end up in an economy where the US is bet on hydrocarbons which are over time devalued. And as I've heard you talk about in the past, China and to some extent Europe go to this new electron economy where the marginal cost of power is zero. This could be seen in historical terms as quite a pivot moment or a sharpening of ongoing trends and an accelerant to ongoing trends.
- [25:48]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
But by the way, on that point in the piece we put out called a crude Awakening, we have a chart in there. It shows the asset rotations over time between asset heavy and asset light. They always occur around these big geopolitical events. Let's go back to the end of the dot com boom and the beginning of the China boom. What was the pivot point? September 11th? And when we think about what occurred there is, we saw the attack on the towers, that was September 11th. By September 13th and 17th, the Americans were already negotiating a deal with China to admit them into the WTO in exchange for a vote in the UN Security Council to let the US use force in the Middle East. Back then the Americans used to ask for permission, something they don't do now. But I think the key point is there's a chain reaction. Now I'm not going to say that was the only reason China was on its way to become a member of of wto, but it accelerated it. It all occurred and you just swung and you just look at the rotation that occurred right there. It's just almost right. On January 1, 2002, you left the dot com world and the telecom world, which would be like the AI and data center world of today and boom. You went into the commodity world and you never looked back. And people say, oh, AI is so much more important than energy and oil. Look, they don't even care about the war. Let's go back to a very important point. AI dominance is essentially energy dominance. You can't have one without the other. And when we look at this disruption, your ability to dominate in AI, dominate in energy are going to be very much tied to one another. And ultimately, as you and I discussed in our last session, is that having that ability to have a zero marginal cost fully electric energy system with EVs where your marginal cost is zero because it's all nuclear, it is renewables, it's batteries, and there's no marginal cost. Your ability to dominate in AI will be unlike any other entity on the planet Earth.
- [28:09]
Paul Chapman
I mean, it really does. It's fascinating in a way, isn't it? Because we've had two years of relatively low volatility. Relatively. There's data out there that says the wallet within the commodity trading sector has gone from 30 billion averaging last year, into almost 100 in the early part of this decade. And then kind of has settled back down a bit right up until this point, but has settled back down at triple the level of the last decade. And today you just sit there and you think this rollover into real assets, the recognition that even in the energy transition, you can't print the molybdenum and the xanthium, whatever it might be that you need, certainly you can't print the molecules and they are going to continue to be needed. That roll into real assets is going to be accelerated by this. And at the same time, the commodity volatility story is just going to. Presumably in that world of decoupling de globalization, of not trusting supply chains, of not trusting governments to honor the rules, of the ability to pull the rug on exports at any given time. I mean, that case for a commodity trading platform that has a broad footprint in the physical world is pretty strong. It was stronger today than it was two months ago. And it was already pretty strong two months ago.
- [29:31]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
Yeah, and I think the, you know, I get your point is this. This was already underway, by the way, in 2001 and 2. You're well on your way at the revenge of the old economy before September 11th. September 11th was the accelerant that just swung you really hard the other direction. Like I think that this one's going to be. And you know, there's still a belief that this thing finished itself. And five days, six days, like all the banks are still, hey, we're going back to 60, 65. No, you saw the low prints. You're not going back to 60, 65. We're in a different world. And I think one thing that made this very clear last week was we saw a failed bond auction for the German boons. And it wasn't because of lack of liquidity. It's because they couldn't price it low enough because the inflation expectations were so high. What was that bond going to do? It was going to build out energy, infrastructure, defense and everything like that. The cost of building all this Stuff just went up tremendously and everybody's going to be doing it at the exact same time. There's enough of signals out there that this is real. But you look at the market, even today we're up on the equity market. I think we were down this morning in oil, actually. I think in the last quarter hour we're back up. But the point being it still has not appreciated, priced in or looked at any of these signals that this is the important. It still thinks AI is dominant. AI is only dominant if you can turn on the data centers in the computers. If you can't turn them on or you don't have the copper to be able to create the grid and the transformers to turn it on, it's meaningless. I think that point is the one that's lost here.
- [31:21]
Paul Chapman
Again, it comes back to this fascinating sort of overhang of complacency, denial, optimism and as you say, kind of the language out there, which of course we all use iviews of duration matters. But duration really only mattered in day one to five. It seems now we're at a point whether it stops tomorrow or stops in the month, there's no outcome barring a total Iranian immediate surrender. That does anything, you know, and even then. Well, that does anything to get prices stabilized. And even then they're going to be stabilized at a higher level with all that infrastructure damage.
- [31:58]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
Right.
- [31:58]
Paul Chapman
I mean, and that just doesn't seem a possibility out there. And again, even if so, I mean, I want to talk about like we aren't going back to a world where people aren't pricing in a significant risk. Premiums come away.
- [32:10]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
No, no, we're not. Yeah. Just without. I don't see how it's possible. And just think about the cost to rebuild the Gulf. I mean, if the pars field really was just struck just now, these are large, extremely globally critical to the economic environment of the entire world. And we are hitting these assets. It's going to be really expensive to dig ourselves out of this. I don't know if it's true or not, but I think that goes to that point that the, and I, and I really think about, about why is. I think there's a belief deep down this cannot really be happening. You know, I look back at and my biggest mistake in 2000 was I didn't sell enough of my, my, my shares. But I think the mistake, the thing that everybody believes in the equity market is that it always comes back. I'm not worried about it because it had, I had, you know, I was down 27% in 22 and the equity market. But by 23, it was up. And even in, you know, Covid, in 2020, I was down a lot. But the reality is I was up by, by the end of 2020. And there's not one person out there other than you and I, Paul, that will tell you that that's not going to happen again. I just, I think it'll be up, but this time it's going to be the big producers of heavy assets. Halo, by the way, I love that term, halo. Heavy asset, low obsolescence by halo. And so I think that we're in that. And you want to own halo, by the way, the 2000s were very much that way. The equity market never saw the highs of 2000 for another almost decade. And that's probably what we're talking about this time around. I'm not an equity guy. I don't want to scare everybody. I'm just telling you that happened. I think it took a decade for the equity market to get back to the levels it was in the 2000s, particularly the NASDAQ. I think it may have been 15 years.
- [34:24]
Paul Chapman
There's been a couple of lost decades in there. As you say, everyone's recent experience is the last 15 years where it's just gone up and almost exponentially, certainly in the US versus Europe, that could change. And I mean, I think. And there's a chance that when we look back at this, it will be Joe Kent's resignation yesterday. You know, the top counterterrorism official for the Trump administration might be that pivot point. Right. The moment at which a deep insider said, you know, we shouldn't have done this, and there is no plan, and I can't stand by while we do this. I mean, I think that might come around as one of the more profound moments in US History. Let's hope it's not the case. But it does seem like that was a key pivot moment.
- [35:09]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
Yeah, it was kind of like the WMDs under the bush administration. It took a little, by the way you look at when that oil, the WMD thing all occurred around 2003. And by that point is that transition by 0405, the transition into old economy, heavy assets, it was well underway at that point. And everybody wants to blame that on China. China was part of the story, accelerated it in 04. But again, just like we're saying today, that story was well underway going in back to 99, 2000, just like it was well underway before this event just occurred.
- [35:46]
Paul Chapman
Yeah.
- [35:47]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
And, yeah, the Other point too is I would argue, I still argue this stuff started in 2020 when you and I first did one of these podcasts talking about the new super cycle. You look at metals, it's just a straight line. You look at the softs, they were a straight line over there. Live cattle was a straight line from there. Copper had a little wobble.
- [36:06]
Paul Chapman
I am resisting the urge to say, have you felt like telling people I told you so?
- [36:14]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
You don't want to be short volume in these markets. I think it's that everybody got lulled into the short volume environment and it's time to be long volume. And commodities are the best way to express a long volume macro environment.
- [36:29]
Paul Chapman
Yeah, yeah. And it's fascinating to see even sort of the, the early stocks that have been hit have been sort of those that have been kind of around a critical minerals narrative, you know, and, and the ultimate. Why is that? Well, in part because yes, the critical minerals are needed, but these things have 10 year lead times and people are realizing that it's, it's, to use one of your phrases, it's molecules today. Right. You can't print these things and you need to be, you need to be in the hard assets that can get produced today. The halo. I don't know. I mean, I know Jeff. And people should watch, you've been on YouTube, on Bloomberg and people should go watch those. Is there anything as we like, what are you looking at over the next five days apart from potentially the S&P 500 collapsing and oil going to 200? But are there any sort of key things that you and sort of deep thinkers on this are looking at? Is there other data coming out in the next couple of weeks that what do you think will be a potential pivot point going forward? Or what information out there is a key gate that you're like actually that's going to confirm this story?
- [37:36]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
I think the key thing to watch here is the convergence between paper and physical. Just watch the physical markets. The molecule contagion is occurring at the physical level regardless of what's happening at the paper level. So the question you have to ask is when do you see the paper markets converge to the physical? And I get up every morning, I look at where, where are platts prices trading around the world? And you know, if I see any weakness there that would say hey some stuff's easy there. But all I've seen in the last three weeks, platts prices get worse and worse and worse. So the question you then have to ask is when do you see the Big paper benchmarks start to converge where the physical markets are. And I think that that's when you take, you create an acceptance around what is happening. I want us to go back to talking to somebody yesterday, really smart individual. He says he shorted in January all the equity markets on what he saw in China and in Covid. He says he got taken out, stopped out of his positions and it wasn't until February it really began to work here. I think it'll be a quicker timeline given the fact that there's enough evidence of this moving through global supply chains. And also we haven't even started the, the ramifications of like in the US the BP refinery, I think it's the Whiting one strikes because the workers are going hey, we see this. So the contagion is well beyond the molecules. It's contagion. You've got military contagion, labor contagion, molecule contagion. It's starting to happen everywhere you look. And so you know, I look at that, you know the physical market is the real benchmark here, watch that. And I think even if you open up the strait tomorrow, the amount of supply that is shut in, the damage to the infrastructure, the misalignment of ships all over the world, you've got a factor. The big headlines today is cargo ships dumping cargo in safe places, using a 19th century law to unwind. This is just going to be painstakingly difficult and it's like an air pocket in global supply chains and it's coming your direction and it's getting in the, in the air pocket is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And so they think the key thing is watch the physical markets near you and as it starts to come into those, those markets you've got to behead yourself and, and understand the risks that are involved. So I think the key conclusion in there is it's an air pocket moving through the global supply chain and it's having implications that are far away from us and Europe. Right now it's in Thailand, it's in Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, it's in the Indian Ocean with the Oman benchmark eventually and it's showing up again. Jet fuel prices in Rotterdam.
- [40:41]
Paul Chapman
Yeah, it's coming to you just one final bit before we let you go and I really appreciate the time. The other thing that's kind of bubbling on in the background and we've heard a couple of shocks, obviously a couple of well known funds limiting redemptions is private credit which has been a huge explosion as an asset class. Essentially banks offloading what they wanted to do into other firms but still suffering the same risks. That to me as well, I mean private credit presumably is going to seize up in a high volume world. Is that sort of gasoline on the fire of this? Where does that sit in your mind and what are you looking at from that perspective?
- [41:21]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
I mean it's one of the many short volume trades out there, as you point out. Actually I think it's less dangerous than anything we've seen before because the money is sticky. You don't get a bank run like you did in 08. So it's its own problem in its own category. That's a financial issue. What we're dealing with is a physical issue and this is supply chains, this is inflationary impact, it's all of the above. And so that's out there, but I never was a buyer that this thing is systemic because remember it's you know, long term capital that has. It's not the guy with his deposit at Chase in Wells Fargo that does a run like in or created the fear of a run in 2008 that caused the system to seize up. This one's a very different dynamic and I don't think it has any of those same type of properties. I'm not going to get into good or bad of it. But I think the key point here is focus on what's happening in the physical markets because that's the one I think that is more concerning.
- [42:31]
Paul Chapman
Yeah, well, if the world is stuck in maslow and deep fear and some greed, if I can go and buy some halo stocks. But I think you've set us up with a very clearly Jeff and as always really appreciate your time. But I think I would agree with you that the world has not quite priced all this in if at all. And actually irrespective of what happens now in the Strait of Hormuz, the die is being cast in and you know, and the ramifications are on the move.
- [43:00]
Jeff Curry Carlisle
Exactly, exactly.
- [43:08]
Paul Chapman
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