Kevin Bambrough Profile picture
Oct 6, 2021 28 tweets 8 min read Read on X
Many Black Swans are circling over head like vultures ready to rip many industries apart.

A few 5am thoughts on:

#energycrisis #currencycrisis
#debtcrisis
#coal
#gas
#inflation
#blackswan
Coal generates nearly 40% of the world's electricity, close to its highest share in decades.

Thermal coal prices are spiking out of control all over the world. I’m some places doubling historic all time highs.
“Natural gas is the fastest growing fossil fuel, accounting today for 23% of global primary energy demand and nearly a quarter of electricity generation”

Again natgas prices spiking out of control and taking power prices with it
Many parts of the world are critically short of coal at the moment. The coal industry was written off for dead by ESG investors despite we still rely on it to feed 40% of world power. Truly amazing exercise in stupidity. Perfect example of how shortsighted and unscientific we are
We we have ~65% of our global energy grid facing spiking input costs and in many places forced to reduce power output.

Many key industries taking a hit and some being forced to reduce production because of power shortages. Silicone and aluminum in China as an example
Coal also powers cement and refining / smelting of metals. Costs are going to go up for everything including wind turbines and solar panels. Plus we are scrambling to build metal intensive batteries for power storage for cars and utilities that rely on wind and solar
China is telling its banks to lend (basically saying what ever it takes) to utilities so they can try to buy coal and gas etc so they have supplies to get through the winter. Shanxi one of the biggest coal hub districts in the world is facing flooding and production issues.
Extreme weather, rains and possibly snow this winter will likely impact more coal regions and cause production problems that will now be front page news.

We will sound be hearing about financial blow ups as some energy traders get caught short or some producers get blown out
Energy hedging has both winners and losers and my bet is there’s gonna be some big losers. Along with many industry’s that will have difficult passing on the costs. And then we have the public outcry and price squeeze to contend with.
As people struggle to pay energy bills that will also dampen the economy.

Our governments are frankly fucking useless and ya know what they say. People get the governments they deserve
We collectively elect celebrities rather than thinkers,great speakers and presenters that know fuck all about the power industry and just read polls and hammer on talking points. The main stream media serves us up bullshit every day to trigger emotional responses and more viewers
These black swans will play out, I have no doubt there will be so much economic volatility because of the esg energy crisis.

I’ve done the math and have invested in #uranium because #nuclearpower is the only way out of this mess. 100% certain.
It’s total garbage to pretend that @elonmusk and others are going to save the world with electric cars when most good estimates say that will required a doubling of the electricity grid over 20 years. So much copper and metal required it’s mind boggling and frankly impossible.
But the auto industry is going to keep cranking out EV’s and we are gonna plug them in all over the world and they will be fueled mostly with coal and natgas. Until nuclear power takes over baseload. New nuclear power solutions are incredible and many can be factory built
Existing coal fired plants can be retrofitted and/or replaced with SMR nuclear tech. The #uranium industry is slow moving and a lagger of coal, gas and oil. But rest assured it’s gonna get lit and lit soon
Uranium supplies 11 percent of global power and there’s barely any inventory in the world. The industry is full of bear market minded folks that can’t see the forest through the trees. The uranium price will be going to all time highs in the next year or two max. Probably $200lb
But could easily spike to $500lb. Think of all the trillions of dollars at stake sloshing around in the global energy markets. Coal doubling its all time highs already in many parts of the world and so will #uranium
The best thing about the nuclear industry is that the #uranium price is only about 2-3% of the power price. So even if it 10 bagged to $400/lb the utilities will pay it and the power price rise as a result will extremely modest compared to what we are already seeing from coal gas
Sprott Physical Uranium Trust and a basket of junior miners / explorers are the best way to play what’s coming. I especially like the ones with infrastructure and no shitty low priced contracts that can potential squeeze them.
I’ve comment in the past month on my concern about investing in miners that have contracted more than they currently produce like $cco. This is a big part of the reason I have trouble recommending the uranium etfs. They all have large weighting’s in $cco
#urnm is the lowest weighting and also owns $u.un SPUT $SRUUF

I personally would recommend shorting out its ~12-13% $cco holding and buying more Sprott Uranium Trust for those that can short and also access $u.u $u.un $sruuf via their broker
There will be billions flowing to the #uranium sector soon and it’s small so it’s gonna get extremely volatile. Plus the more funds flow to $urnm the more it will bid up $u.un SPUT. When you buy Sprott uranium trust it issues shares and purchases physical uranium
Financial speculators and energy investors are about to do what the utility industry and our governments are too stupid to do. We are going to gobble up the uranium inventories and benefit from the necessary price rise that absolutely must happen
The #uranium industry currently can’t even produce what we consume each year. The it’s hard to say how many lbs are left floating around in the uranium market today but it’s quickly running out and the cupboard will soon be bare. Just $1bln will likely take the price to $200/lb
Currently the utilities (fuel buyers) are playing a game they’ve played for 10 years of the bear market. They are all promising not to buy spot market uranium lbs and they are instead scrambling to send out RFP’s to uranium producers
They avoid buying spot sucker weak handed producers into contracts that often have price caps and all discount future price rises. But the jig is up. The spot market is being drained and the coming squeeze is a mathematical certainty. So get long and be strong!
Hope you all profit while funding the only real solution to the climate change crisis and make enough funds to offset the crazy inflation that is most certainly coming. Remember all the gov officials can do is print more money
The central banks and global governments will be printing and bailing out the utilities and its only going to drive prices higher. They can’t print coal or natgas and it’s gonna be a long crazy winter.

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More from @BambroughKevin

Jun 8
Ya know what is pretty funny… some people actual think they can trust what governments say.

As if #China is gonna announce that they are working towards selling all their USD bonds and tbills cause they finally realize the USA economy is a debt financed Ponzi scheme and the Federal reserve is 100% destined to print trillions upon trillions of dollars over the coming years!
As if we should expect foreign holders of USD reserves to announce that they are going to be seeking to exit foreign currency holdings while avoiding trade imbalances and settling up and imbalances with precious metal reserves.

But the signs are all there…. The trend is there
But most importantly if you use your brain and analyze the situation the path forward becomes clear.

Theirs been a 99% loss in purchasing power of the USD over the past 100 years and we should if anything expect the next 100 years to be worse. Why? Because the gold reserves have been encumbered and the silver reserves mostly sold off. Likely all reserves have been lent out and sold into the market. ‘Deep storage’, SDR’s, promises to foreign govs that their gold is available. The preponderance of evidence is that these governments all lie, obfuscate and cheat.
Read 25 tweets
May 30
In the mid 2000’s I went to Bejing and met with the then head of CITIC Bank.

I questioned why they thought it was a good idea to be producing so many goods, and then load them on boats and send them to the USA in exchange for money that was being created out of thin air?
After lengthy exchanges on the subject along with some laughs it became clear to me that there was a few reasons for the accumulation.

1. USD was the global reserve currency and they had a goal of owning more US treasuries than Japan in part for the message it would send to the rest of the world, also to just have more than Japan for their collective egos but also to be able to have influence over the USA. (I saw this is the power from having the ability to threaten to dump the treasuries and mess with the Dollar and the USA economy, clearly a position of power)
2. They also made it clear that for the time being it served there purpose and it cleared did from a strategic point of view as some people (self included saw the long game). Nearly every single business was opening manufacturing facilities and the transfer of knowledge and economies of scale was modernizing China at an extremely rapid rate. And as many predicted China became excellent at copying but also has evolved to innovate well. Just like Japan and Korea did.

Even back then they were ramping up there domestic car industry with knock offs.

Now they are able to make phones better than Apple. They are no longer dependent at all. But Apple and others are dependent on them.
Read 16 tweets
May 21
#silver and #gold are running because the entire world knows that the USA is not going to get its deficit spending under control and even Yellen is now saying clearly that higher interest rates make it more difficult to pay down the debt. The goverment needs interest rates lowered and money debts monitized
They’ve been acknowledging this for sometime. Here’s what she said last October…

The Treasury on Friday reported a $1.7 trillion federal budget deficit for fiscal 2023, the largest outside the COVID-19 pandemic years as revenues fell and outlays for Social Security, Medicare and interest costs rose sharply.
Yellen said that the U.S. debt servicing burden would be a "bigger challenge if the interest rate path stays higher."
Fact is interest payments on the debt are becoming the nations largest expense.

As the economy slows (which it is) the deficit will explode. $2t plus. When we get a real hard recession (which we will) it will explode to $4t plus.

Even just to stay the course $1.7T of freshly printed money is hot money that is going to keep driving commodity inflation
Read 4 tweets
May 7
Another thing I will touch on in the near future is the developing thoughts around assembly theory and evolution.

Darwin’s natural selection with random mutations missed the mark. It doesn’t take enough account for intentional evolution nature.com/articles/s4158…
Turns out, Lamarckism who theorized a more complex intention related evolution (before Darwin) will likely be proven to be more correct.

Interestingly this relates to #epigenetics and the theory is also applicable to the #economj and the #markets and I’ll outline this in my upcoming book.
I think this also relates to market forces and economic theory. Free markets are not the pure survival of the fittest efficient creation systems for the best economies. They are often corrupted as short term desires are outbalanced and prioritized ahead of better longer term solutions.
Read 7 tweets
May 6
As I watch #gold and #silver stocks threatening to break out to new highs for this move, I’m also writing away on my #investment #book.

Here’s a little tidbit I was noodling on today….
The average #investor is out to lunch on what’s coming down the pipe as far as fiat currencies vs precious metals.

In the USA especially most people are completely oblivious to how spoiled they’ve become with their global reserve currency status.

They spend money like spoiled brats. Creating money at will. Zero fiscal discipline. Nearly no one willing to pay more taxes but most everyone bitter about the taxes they pay and the quality of services they receive. No context to the ‘greatest generation’ and how hard they had to work, the huge taxes they paid to lift the nation out of the Great Depression and build much of the glorious infrastructure across North America

In the background it seems to me like the major commodity produces and even manufacturers of the world are gearing up to move off using the US dollar as a reserve.

The inflation will be rampant when the world stops funding the USA trade deficit.

I see the USA increasingly getting cut out of trade relationships as China, India, Brazil, Japan focus on sending finish goods / manufactured products to emerging markets in exchange for getting raw materials shipped back.

The more inflation comes to the USA the more undesirable it will be to hold USA bonds. Selling of USA bonds will push rates up and hurt the leveraged consumer and the economy.

This will create larger deficits and also hurt profits and lower tax revenue of all types. Deficits cycle up. Creating the need for more printing. Which will cause more foreign central banks to want to exit treasuries or at least not accumulate more.

This is why the Fed is in a box now. Rate increases will increase budget deficits as they will slow the economy and increase the interest burden.

Growing deficits as far as the eye can see will just keep increasing bond investor unease and cycle up inflation. The more the Fed is forced to monetize to try to keep rates down the more the USA will be exposed as having a ponzi economy.

The more inflation / holding rates higher will hurt profits and slow growth. All combined to make investors demand lower P/E ratios. Capital gains profit turn to capital losses and goverment revenues fall cycling things all to the worse. A negative fly wheel effect on the economy and the USA dollar.

Meanwhile, China and India will continue ramping up their domestic economy. Their trade with emerging markets will result in economic growth outside the USA and global competition for raw material will just keep increasing as everyone is looking to build out electrical grid for EV’a and AI.

The more USA gets cut out of the trade flow the worse it will get for the USA consumer and the economy

The saying used to be “when the USA catches a cold the rest of the world get sick”. Not so much anymore…

China and Japan used to really support the US trade deficit and help finance the USA consumer to keep their own manufacturing and exports strong. Recessions in the USA really hurt thier economies 20 years ago.

But now exports are not nearly as important to China.

In 2004 trade was ~60% of China’s gdp.

In 2024 it will be around 34-35%.

Over those 20 years USA has gone from 20% of chinas trade to 15%

That equates to ~12% of China’s economy then o ~3.4% of China’s economy now.

72% drop in the USA significance/influence on Chinas economy. When a huge drop in trade due to a USA recession might only have a 1% effect on Chinas gdp now and can easily be made up with China engaging in its own domestic spending stimulus.

The result is, China is no longer very reliant at all on usa’s economy. But the USA is perhaps even more so dependent on China now for many imports like rare earths and many finished goods/parts for manufacturing in the USA.

Bottom line here is what we are seeing right now in the global financial markets is looking like the start of a soon to be rapid exodus from USA focused trade and US dollar denominated transactions.
Foreign central banks see the writing on the wall.. the USA will not be getting its financial house in order. They debts accumulated will not be paid back with taxes, hard work and the production of goods and services required to under pin value in the USA dollar.

Instead it’s another story of broken promises and lost faith in the USA and its currency. At the end of the roaring 20’s bubble market the USA broke its promise to its own citizens by ended the convertibility of its currency to gold and they confiscated gold and devalued the currency vs gold.

At the start of the 70’s they broke the promise to foreign central banks to ending their ability to convert their US dollar holdings to gold. Both of these times they did so cause they were forced to. It become understood that they didn’t have the gold reserves to meet obligations. So they defaulted.

In the 70’s gold went from $35 to over $800. ~25x. Before it settled back in for a couple decades before the run of the 2000’s to now where excessive deficits and money creation have seen it rise nearly 10x from mid $200’s in to well into the $2000’s of late.

But we are reaching another inflection point where a major default in about to be recognized.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 29
Consider that historically s&p 500 companies beat revenue and earnings expectations between 60-70%. This through the good times and the bad times and takes into account that forecasts are both moved up and down by analysts prior to companies reporting. What does this tell us?
Does it tell us analysts suck at estimating?

If they were very good at estimating companies revenue and earnings the number would be much lower.

But only 3-5% of the time do analysts get the number right.

Turns out that companies miss estimates about 20-30% of the time
Recently bears are coming in high 78%. Over the last decade the trend is higher than the last few decades with 75% of companies beating the numbers. So 3-5% hitting and just 20% missing.

3.9x more companies beating than missing.

What does this tell us? I ask again…
Read 15 tweets

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