Thread by @hendry_hugh

Every Friday I publish my podcast series Confessions - a boot camp for wannabe hedge fund types - and I play time travel by bouncing from my old investment letters to the present day in search of inspiration. This week I reflect upon time investing. buzzsprout.com/1017043/8215964

This edition is labelled "Loud!!" because I finally resolved the problem with my mike - I'm now positively loud...furthermore I have had an epiphany -I now accept that I can only recognise absurd investment opportunities with the advantage of large swathes of time.

I compare and contrast time cycles, using the 20 year bear market in gold with that for the tech giant SAP back in 2003 - I'm grateful that I could read the entrails in gold but I admonish myself for failing to buy SAP at €10 in 2003 and why I might buy it now for €120...

I discuss the duality of radical monetary policy and ever greater fiscal interventions that add zeros to deficits but fail to sling shot ailing economies back to their previous trajectories whilst each time the body speculative plots for a return of inflation - plus ça change!

We role play macro investing. I start with a macro narrative and seek to alight upon a futures position. Last week we discussed owning carbon credit futures. Typically, I would then proceed to find stocks that confirmed my global narrative.

So this week we go back to the future and discuss the European stocks from my newsletters of 2003 to discover whether they have investment merits today in 2021 and with carbon credits trading at €35k.

I discuss an old favourite, Nord Deutsche Affiniere, a German copper smelter that always seemed totally incongrous back in 2003. Today, we side step the absurdity of its new name, the horrible, Aurubis, and examine what's going on in the copper smelting industry.

The Belgian materials group, Umicore is another old fashioned business that's been transformed by the passage of time. I spend too much time on its its murky past in the Congo and inexplicably neglect to discuss its leading catalytic converter technology. Stock looks explosive.

I search for the remnants of my old Scandi stocks, Outokumpu and Rautaruukki - Finnish for iron works. The latter I find within the Swedish stainless steel giant, SSAB. I look at the price chart and imagine that it could explode higher - is Europe set to impose a carbon tax tarif

I also explain how China performed a miracle. I bet the legend, Mick Davis of Xstrata, that Chinese demand for steel would never match its 1 billion ton supply. I was wrong...steel looks hot-to-trot and US peers - NUE - are on the verge of a 12 year new price high.

Outokumpu merged and formed MetsoOutotec. It is what Joy Global and Bucyrus were to open cast mining before they were swallowed up by Komatsu and Caterpillar. MetsoOuto dominate the huge machinery market underground for crushers etc.

Using Sandvick, a small tools equipment supplier, we postulate that MetsoOutotec could break-on through to the higher side. But for now I'll wait for price confirmation.

Finally, we turn to European utilities. The hydros have soared in synch with the carbon credit price. We conjecture that the French giant, EDF, maybe set to move higher should the French state sanction its nuclear plants as good to continue to operate for a lot longer.

And lastly in the, "who would of thought that?" category, I ask if we'll see a German political coalition led by the greens to re-open Germany's nuclear stations or better yet order state of the art new ones? I might take a deep dive into the uranium bull market next time.

And it can all be found here

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