Speculation is the search for truth in price and time. Not investment advice - just personal views. Blog at https://t.co/DD2iUKbdLz
Jun 15 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
For those of you curious, these threads don't exist for the purposes of dunking later.
One of the biggest utilities I have found with X that has stood the test of time (and a top reason I even keep this active anymore) is there are rare moments where we get what I call "The Pile On."
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I first noticed the "Pile On" back in June-July 2022. After being relentlessly bearish stocks and bonds throughout 1H22 blasting anything Tiger Bros owned (and Cathie Wood garbage for most of 2021 before that), I saw a top story on Bloomberg that read something like "Short sellers sitting on $300bln in YTD unrealized gains." I wrote a few threads about wanting to get long crypto and Cathie Wood garbage, and the vitriol I got back was so crazy, someone even accused me of being a closet QAnon follower. I owned some August22 CVNA callspreads, and decided to test this by tripling my size, sight unseen.
I pretty much never comment on single stocks in public because I don’t need batsht replies that randomly result and I don’t need bad blood with mgmts, but this deserves to be flagged as an exhibit in why it still matters to show up for the quarterly call.
1/10
Cameco $CCJ reported 2Q a month ago and now everyone is rocking and rolling about the MR guide down on Thursday. But you could have known there was a fricking match to a flame *weeks ago* by literally reading a transcript on 2x for 20mins.
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May 17, 2025 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Ok I would normally not bother but the “Treasuries and Dollar rallied on the August 2011 S&P downgrade” takes all over twitter are really misguided (I wanna be nice here).
1/8
First off: no, the Moody’s downgrade is NOT the end of the world. I’m not even sure it matters… maybe a tiny bit but only in that it’s the last one, but anyone with a brain knows our deficit is in a No Fly Zone. This just highlights the obvious.
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Jan 20, 2025 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
So, it pains me a little to write this because I rarely wade in political waters, but I don’t think people are looking far enough down the path. So I will go out on a limb and say the following.
1/6
When Trump got elected in 2016 and some family and friends went nuts, I attempted to assuage them with “don’t sweat Trump - worry about what comes after.”
Remember my leanings. I am Mercutio. “A plague on both your houses.”
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Dec 18, 2024 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Guys I am honestly having a hard time keeping up with the Max Stupid traffic so I am gonna make this an ongoing thread. Please send me your best and I will grow the list until the penny drops.
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Awww how quaint this should be worth a billion easy 2/
Milton is like Kobe Jan1995. Except in 1H95 the Nikkei crashed for months, even took down Barings with Leeson. Now stocks may do the same initially (no bears, put/call crushed, etc), but they are gonna eventually rip so hard on the Milton rebuild.
1/4
Think about it - Helene/FEMA been a complete clusterfuk (we can debate whether intentionally or not elsewhere). Like Katrina for Biden/Kamala.
But Florida? This is the state thay cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000 — remember “hanging chads?”
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Aug 22, 2024 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
A few real gems from the past few weeks’ oil responses.
🧵
There are many like this - flat and reasonably polite. I didn’t realize down 5-10% from basis constituted “shambles” but some people have tighter risk limits than others I supposed
Jul 23, 2024 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Regardless of how all the wild speculation around the US Executive ends up in the coming days, weeks and months, the current uncertainty is growing my conviction rapidly in one way specifically:
1/4
Oil powers the machine everywhere. The economic machine. The activity machine. The war machine. The Machine. It is the substrate of power and might.
The uncertainty splintering the minds of many in the market could end in up with “oil as the next gold,” in the following way.
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Jun 21, 2024 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
My buddy @kevinmuir wrote one of the best things I have read all year:
Rate hikes have been net stimulative as borrowers termed out lower while higher govt rates generate income accruing to debtholders with a tendency to buy financial assets vs spend, fueling mini-bubbles. Lower rates from a slower economy will have the opposite effect on stocks.
My thoughts on this…
1/6posts.themacrotourist.com/p/lower-intere…
I have said ad nauseum how we are speaking Portuguese and don’t realize it in the EM-ification of USA. A key mechanism to turning Brazil into one of the highest gini coefficients in the world is precisely an elevated nominal/inflationary feedback loop environment which, taken to BZ’s extreme, has resulted in payroll loans and consumer credit at 30% *per month* while the rich would park in BZ sovereigns earning 20% nominal/10% real and send their money to swiss mountaintops while flying private. Modern day Gilded Age robber baron shit handed down from the era of sugar plantations but without the production of Carnegie steel and Rockefeller oil — just constant gini tightening.
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Apr 14, 2024 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Putting this here rather than behind the stack paywall and doing it before 6pm because I am seeing a lot of really shit takes on why this was a nothingburger since Iran didn’t hit anything major, “all bark no bite,” and so gold and especially oil should be faded.
1/7
I think people who are thinking this way about oil in particular are scarred by 3 - THREE - successive physical dumps over the past 2 years and that is Martingale thinking gone awry.
1) Russia invaded, and Biden that summer cratered oil with a historic centimillion bbl sale.
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Apr 10, 2024 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
People are massively overthinking this. In 2022 I wrote a thread called “Win-Win is now Lose-Lose” for stocks - pls read:
We are now in the same place for bonds and guys are terrified of being short. THE TRAPDOOR IS IN. It’s Lose-Lose. Simply put:
If inflation misses for March and maybe April before scorching later in 2Q as I expect, the Fed has cover to be dovish *which is a shitshow negative for the long end of the curve* as it reinforces the policy mistake made months ago.
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Mar 19, 2024 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
While everyone screws around with AI this week, this glorious year for macro continues unabated. Will try to drop a note on the Fed via the blog in my bio tomorrow, but meanwhile here is a rare drop from behind the wall/chat earlier for those who care about the BoJ and yen:
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JPY - just occurred to me maybe I have had this all wrong. I should have been listening to myself from early 2022 all along when I dropped the Velociraptor thread that many of you liked back when JPY was <125 on its way to 150.
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Feb 10, 2024 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I would like to express my gratitude once again to all who subscribed to the blog in my bio. It means so much that I can write for and engage with people who value it. 1/5
I had intended to stay somewhat connected here and post interesting one-offs, but I owe it to those who took the leap of faith and were willing to sign up in support of me to focus my energy and attention on them.
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Jan 13, 2024 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
I am beginning a new chapter in my life.
As a recently released “free agent” (nothing to do with this account), I now find myself at a crossroads for what comes next.
A thread 🧵(but worth reading to the end for NY buysiders!)
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Over these past few years, I have found my writing to be valuable not just to my own flywheel (writing helps me think, which helps me invest better, which makes me want to write), but also for meeting exceptional people & gathering feedback.
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Jan 12, 2024 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This point gets lost on a lot of Recession Bros who keep waiting for claims to explode to 350k+ and unemployment to rip in some disinflationary morass:
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When your deficit accelerates *in an expansion* as it is now, your private sector needs to shrink at that much faster a pace for production/sales/incomes to decline.
Absent that, inflation needs to accelerate faster than fiscal growth to crowd out Private on a real basis.
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Jan 5, 2024 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Ironically people’s market narratives in making sense of what they see are usually late/backwards. Nobody cared about term premium and bond issuance in 1H23, and suddenly in Q3 it mattered (and bonds cratered)…just at the time one should have started worrying about growth.
1/7
The move back down in long-term bond yields since then is really about growth — and the Fed blessed this view in December (remember the Fed is *always* late). But like the market, people are skating to where the puck is now, or the wrong puck entirely.
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Dec 22, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Year end Xmas comment 2023:
It occurred to me yesterday that everyone sees Powell’s pivot last week the same way: politically motivated. Regardless of motivation, there is something deeper here, a 3D chess move, maybe he didn’t realize it when he did it.
1/9
Long dated rates and spreads collapsing has been a boon for bank accounting and cleaning up the AFS/HTM issue from March. If you are BAML/SCHW/regionals, this is your window to rerack the books.
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Dec 19, 2023 • 21 tweets • 5 min read
On Uranium equities, I’ve had a chance to think about some mechanics and flows involved here, and I fear people need to be much more cautious in the near term.
Note I am not talking about the U3O8 spot px - everyone including utilities, CCJ, KAP are short.
$URNM $URNJ $URA
1/21
For starters there is the $URNM and $URNJ ETF selling. This has to do with the PFIC status of underlying holdings (not just Sput but many of the miners like NXE and BOE are PFICs).
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Dec 16, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Folks - please pay attention. 🛢️
The past 18 months witnessed the Great Destocking. Higher rates + higher cost of storage (higher tanker rates etc etc) + no contango = above ground inventory got sold, esp with merchants paying >8-14% financing. 1/5
High interest rates have forced a destocking of physical barrels, sanctioned barrels (russia, iran, vez), SPR barrels, finished goods/products, and now (once again) paper barrels.
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Dec 5, 2023 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
There is an issue I think worth highlighting that is possibly being missed by bulls and bears alike in the bond market.
Many have heard me say that “DMs are becoming EMs” and “the US is speaking Portuguese without realizing it” … let’s start with this as a backdrop.
1/10
DM risk assets as we know have been “up by the stairs, down by the elevator” for many decades. But a defining characteristic of Brazil, S Africa, Turkey, & other fiscal deficit/structurally high rate economies is what a friend calls “down by the escalator, up by the elevator.”
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Nov 29, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
As we settle into December boredom, I can’t shake the feeling that the next several months are going to bring defined by the phrase:
“The Second Mouse Gets the Cheese.”
1/6
For instance, this time last year there were many smart speculators setting up Long non-US and EM equities (and commodities) only to be disappointed as Mag7 became the Ring to Rule Them All in 2023.
Waller’s speech just gave ex-US the green light in 2024…and nobody cared.
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