In case you missed it, the weekend flagship revisited my basket of global financial exchanges. Check it out via the link below 👇:

The Brent Bleed

Before we get to the portfolio reviews, an urgent word on oil…

Read more

This week’s ‘Start the Week’ was sent via email to existing paid subscribers at 4.50am EST on Sunday 7th June if you want to search your inbox. It will be put back in the online archive here once subscription billing is un-paused next week.

Start the Week note will be brief again this week. A few changes to the portfolios this week that we need to go through. I will finally make it home to Melbourne mid-week when normal publishing cadence will recommence (and billing will be un-paused).

Supply!

Last weekend’s note covered the 🐿️’s JOMO (Joy Of Missing Out) philosophy as regards the prevailing feeding frenzy in the memory semis market. Last week’s rout of the leaders frankly came much sooner than I had been expecting.

In last week’s Sunday Show, Benny & I discussed the shift in the sources of funding that the hyper-scalers were employing to finance AI data center (‘AIDC’) capex.

Quick plug: the interview that we recorded with Ameesh Agarwal last week was a fascinating deep dive on on AIDC credit markets. Do at least scan the show notes if you do not have the hour to spare. We have more work to do on this space - there will certainly be trade ideas.

What initially was being covered by internal free cash flow from the tech giants soon migrated into private then public debt capital markets. I am still struggling to understand the corporate finance logic behind financing a 10-year useful life asset with a 30-year JPY/GBP bond issue.

The 🐿️’s worst ever personal macro call was to leave an ECM job in Asia in July 2003 - on the eve of a decade long Chinese IPO mega boom. On the flight back from Hong Kong to my new job in London that summer, I read Rob Buckland’s note (below) with a degree of trepidation. What looked to be great outlook for equity prices (and it was!) and for M&A bankers was decidedly a ‘no bueno’ for IPO bankers!

Since the start of the year, I have been increasingly concerned that the tailwinds that have supported US equities in the past 15 years - namely share buybacks, LBOs and 401k flows - could be about to move into reverse just as the market faces a wall of AI-related equity supply.

Back to the Sunday Show. We were discussing this very topic. I commented that “…if we start getting MAG7 common stock supply on top of these IPOs, I’d be really worried”. Less than 24 hours later, the Alphabet $80bn capital raise news hit the tape. The physics of the SpaceX IPO layout just got considerably harder.

The 🐿️ had been booked by CNBC in Hong Kong to chat about the SpaceX IPO the following morning. But for me, the Google news was probably the bigger deal to discuss (link to the relevant clip via image below).

Google’s raise certainly robs liquidity from the SpaceX deal in the near term. More importantly, it has already potentially triggered its first ‘copy cat’ deal from Zuckerberg.

Who next? Amazon? Microsoft? The age of reverse de-equitization appears to be upon us! The hyper-scalers and foundation model companies could be issuers of primary equity for the foresee-able future.

In my view, the S&P index committee has 100% made the correct call to require SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI to satisfy the profitability and seasoning standards before inclusion in the benchmark.

I had assumed that they would cave alongside the Nasdaq 100 and FTSE Russell compilers. Am glad that they did not.

For me, we have the makings of a really interesting long equal-weight S&P versus short market-cap weighted S&P (or or ) trade that could work for the next couple of years as the largest stocks in the index become net suppliers of paper to the market.

This may now need some further refinement following the S&P announcement. More on this to follow. The chart below from WisdomTree has been doing the rounds lately on social media. Scary right?

Because the 🐿️ is a nerd, he decided to put together the same analysis of the S&P500 equal-weight / :

With less than 10% exposure to paper valued at > 10x Price to Sales, I kind of know where I want to rent my beta over the next few quarters -especially if it is those most expensive and largest components of the US benchmark are are planning on being net suppliers of equity paper to the market.

BUSHY™ and Acorn Review

Read more

No changes to discuss beyond closing the call leg of the strangle (retaining the September puts). BUSHY™’s assault on the front end of the Brent curve is still pending - but we are getting close.

In case you missed it, the 🐿️ made a guest appearance on The Compound with Josh Brown and Michael Batnick last Wednesday. They asked me on to question me about my work on the SpaceX last week.

Hynix JOMO

The 🐿️ is suffering from a grave bout of amnesia - he has NO MEMORY (in his portfolio)! The only recent exposure I have had to the investor feeding frenzy in DRAM and HBM semiconductors in the past 2 months has been the call leg of the strangle in BUSHY™’s hedge book - and we took that off last week!

As I have mentioned many times before, I have PTSD-related reasons for not participating in this cycle’s DRAM risk ‘orgy’ in Korea (and elsewhere). Significant personal history with multiple recapitalizations of Hynix in the early 2000s has left me with scar tissue and a core mantra that there is no such thing as a value trade in the highly cyclical semiconductor sector.

Read more

Blind Squirrel Macro paid subscriptions are paused until early June. I am unable to accept new paid subscribers until then. While I am on the road, I am continuing to publish the ‘Start the Week’ note on Sundays. Please get in touch if you recently subscribed to the letter and are interested in a trial / review of the archive.

This week’s ‘Start the Week’ was sent via email at 4.30am EST on Monday 25th May if you want to search your inbox. It will be put back in the online archive here once subscription billing is un-paused in June.

If you had not had a chance to look at the new SpaceX piece I put out on Sunday - I think this IPO is the biggest risk factor facing US equity markets this quarter. You need to understand the potential flow of funds impact even if you have no interest in investing in Elon’s rockets.

At the moment, BUSHY™ is underweight risk assets out of choice. The only risk that the beta portfolio has added since the start of the war has been in agricultural commodities and energy equities.

As such, the portfolio is always destined to underperform in market conditions like we saw last week - with energy producers being the weakest US equity sector.

A Quick Note on Crude

I am writing this on Monday afternoon Asia time (c.4am EST). Sunday night futures appear to be paying tepid lip service to the ‘Iran deal proximity’ being sold over the Memorial Day weekend. Equities are well bid and $4-5 per barrel has been shaved off front month Brent and WTI crude prices (about half of what was suggested by Hyperliquid markets over the weekend).

The current headlines out of Washington and the Middle East are not exactly screaming FINAL RESOULUTION! at me but I am prepared to at least concede that we are closer to the end of the war than the beginning.

Read more

Blind Squirrel Macro paid subscriptions are paused until early June. I am unable to accept new paid subscribers until then. While I am on the road, I am continuing to publish the ‘Start the Week’ not…

Read more

While the flagship weekend note will not be published while I am on the road, this week’s ‘Start the Week’ note was just sent to paid subscribers under separate cover.

In addition to the regular weekl…

Read more

As previewed last week, the🐿️ has been restructuring his China equity concentrated long-only portfolio. 17 stocks, 55% in top 5 names. Check it out via the link below 👇:

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

Oh Canada!

The M&A bankers of Toronto’s Bay Street are creating a bunch of extra work for the 🐿️! Delighted for you fellas, but please cut it out! I keep on needing to find portfolio replacements.

Last week saw a $16.4 billion bid for ARC Resources (ARX:TSX), whittling down my #COM Mafia basket to just 5 stocks (after losing MEG Energy to Cenovus late last year.

I agree with the excellent commentary from (a consistent bull on Canadian energy assets for as long as I have followed him) on the deal:

The previous week saw Agnico Eagle swoop on my namesake Rupert Resources (RUP:TSX), one of the development assets sitting within the 🐿️’s ShinyAcorns™ basket.

Am still working on a ‘like for like’ replacement for both portfolios.

What are the bets placed?

BUSHY™ had a strong week and continues its attempt to reel in its end-February high water mark.

Since inception (1/1/25), BUSHY™ has been compounding at over 25% with less than 9% annualized weekly volatility.

As part of my research for the weekend note on the new China basket, I spent some time looking at the multi-asset portfolios that I track to figure out how investors that I respect are positioned in China equities and elsewhere (TLDR - very light still!).

But there were some other interesting observations to make:

Read more

In case you missed it, the weekend flagship covered the Asian Life market - specifically AIA (1299.HK) and Ping An Insurance (2318.HK). Check it out via the link below 👇:

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

Gradually…

The cash-heavy BUSHY™ lagged the S&P again last week but another week of gradually closing the gap with its end of February high water mark.

Before we get to the portfolio review, we need to discuss some further portfolio additions - modest ones, the Strait is still shut after all….

Read more

In case you missed it, the weekend flagship note came out on Friday morning. In it we launched our refreshed basket of European defense stocks.

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

Pulled back into the Pack

The month-do-date finviz risk board (below) is not really what the 🐿️ wanted to see having de-grossed so aggressively (ex-Energy) starting in mid-February.

Even with another significant mark down week for the hedge book, BUSHY™ managed to add 29bps for the week.

We will come back to the portfolio review after going through some immediate ‘Start the Week’ action items:

Read more

Am sending out this note early as it was written before the breakdown of the Islamabad talks.

In case you missed it, the flagship note this weekend focused on global opportunities in the world of closed-end funds.

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

In May 1993 - roughly eight months after even multiple hikes (to a back-breaking 15% policy rate) could not prevent Sterling from crashing out of the ERM on “Black Wednesday” - a BBC journalist asked UK Chancellor Norman Lamont which he regretted more - prematurely claiming to see “green shoots of recovery” in the UK economy a few months earlier (amid a rough ongoing recession) or “singing in his bath”.

This was a tabloid reference to him reportedly belting out show tunes through the soap suds while the ERM crisis unfolded. Lamont’s deadpan retort - “Je ne regrette rien”. Lamont took a lot of flack for that. Not deterred, the🐿️ is also going to channel his inner Edith Piaf this weekend.

The BUSHY™ ‘beta’ portfolio lost 4bps while its Vanguard target date benchmark advanced 3.47% on the back of last week’s ceasefire / ‘Mission Accomplished’ rally.

This is what will happen to a portfolio when you have cut significant length in equities without making corresponding cuts to the hedge book. The Strait is still not freely navigable. No regrets. The risk / reward of piling into risk assets so close to all time highs with the current backdrop feels poor.

Before we get to the weekly portfolio reviews, I want to follow up on the execution plan for those closed end funds.

Read more

In case you missed it, the weekend note was a deep dive (in collaboration my podcasting partner Benny) on the SpaceX IPO and its broader implications of this jumbo transaction on markets.

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

BUSHY™ is still in the process of slowly clawing its way back to the beta portfolio’s YTD high water mark set in late February. Having de-grossed aggressively (starting mid February), it is not surprising that we underperformed during last week’s strong rally in risk assets.

Quite comfortable staying underweight risk. At risk of repetition, the portfolio will stay that way until the Straits of Hormuz are re-opened. I see no upside in being tempted to jump the gun.

BUSHY™ closed Q1 +8.43% - 9.57% ahead of the Vanguard benchmark and 13.07% ahead of the S&P 500 - adding 18 bps in the first 2 trading days of Q2.

BUSHY™ and Acorn Review

Read more

In case you missed it, I used the weekend note to look beyond the Iran war and the investment opportunities related to ruggedizing Australian’s sovereign resilience. Am pleased to say that I under-promised and over-delivered on getting out this ‘Start the Week’ note ahead of the ASX open on Monday.

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

In the context of another tough week for risk assets (outside of energy and precious metals), BUSHY™ eked out a positive +0.37% return for the week.

Pretty happy with that (although the portfolio is still well below the high water mark set in late February). Full BUSHY™ and Acorn review after we lay out the specifics of our…[drum roll please]…

‘Straya Ruggedization Basket

As mentioned in the weekend note, we are still in ‘shopping list’ mode here at Blind Squirrel Macro. The construction of our ‘Straya Ruggedization Basket (‘SRB’) falls into that category. Strapping on a bunch of risk here - however sound the thesis - does not make a great deal of sense while the Strait is still closed.

Let’s start with what is NOT going into the SRB. The 🐿️ was guilty of pulling up the charts of Santos and Origin Energy as semi-direct plays on the Aussie LNG export angle when hostilities in the Persian Gulf broke out. But this rodent does not fight governments.

There are easier energy plays around the world. For example Canadian E&Ps now have wind at their back (with government and ‘Maple 8’ backing) in support of their energy export ambitions. By contrast, the Gladstone LNG complex is most likely facing margin headwinds from Canberra’s energy security policies in the coming years.

Lynas is indeed a tailor-made play on the US defense supply chain plus Japanese capital theme. However, the risk / reward here does not meet my requirements. LYC is up 160% since last summer and already trading at over 9x FY28 revenues with plenty of execution risk in Texas ahead of it. Arguably its chart still makes a bullish technical case but way too much fundamental risk for me.

The small / micro-cap (single project) opportunities I touched on in the Saturday note (Strike Energy, Ardea Resources, NeuRizer and International Graphite) are really for the gambling class - well, you know who you are!

The SRB Framework

Much of Australia’s ruggedization capex drive needs to be built around existing in-country expertise and regulatory frameworks. I was looking for listed companies of reasonable substance and scale that are well positioned to be focal points for investment under the “Future Made in Australia” framework.

For me, the low-hanging fruit falls into 3 categories:

Read more

In case you missed it, I used the weekend note to re-underwrite each position in the Acorn short book. In a world in which maintaining length in risk assets seems like a dangerous pursuit, a short book is an important insurance policy 👇.

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

PSA🚨: Blind Squirrel Macro has been de-grossing for well over a month. Making money on the portfolios’ hedges in January was ‘the tell’ for the 🐿️. I think we are now at the stage that every single day that the Strait of Hormuz is closed you should sell some more long positions. That’s what we will be doing.

Sunday night update (Monday late morning my time): This futures open looks SPECTACULARLY COMPLACENT. Act accordingly.

Listen, I get it: “What if it all blows over? Risk assets will rip and I will be playing catch-up for the rest of 2026!”. Simple. Take out some FOMO insurance.

We are already running out of diesel here in Australia. The government is talking about fuel rationing plans that could be in force in the next few weeks. I need to fly up to Asia at the end of the month. Fuel surcharges are one thing - I am more concerned about outright flight cancellations.

Australia refines approximately 20,000 barrels per day of conventional jet fuel domestically. This meets less than 20% of the country’s aviation demand - the rest comes from international imports. These are not currently flowing. I live a long way away from most places - planes that fly down under do not have enough in the tank for the journey home…

Unsurprisingly, the airline sector has shed almost 30% of market cap since late January - well before the time that the missiles and drones started flying. Are listed airlines potentially the ultimate de-escalation trade?

What if for every few percentage points that you take down your net long exposure you add a ‘right tail’ of airline upside? You can buy 15% delta calls on - the airline ETF - for 37% implied vol. Basically pennies. An inexpensive way to dull the FOMO. Link to OptionStrat payoff model via the image below.

I will have discussed this in more detail with Benny on the Sunday show (never miss one!) but at least you are getting this before the calls open for trading!

BUSHY™ and Acorn Review

The beta portfolio lost 137bps on the week - now +7.37% year to date. We are going to be eating our own cooking. More pink tickets for BUSHY™ this week.

Read more

In case you missed it, ‘Farmer Squirrel’ (in collaboration with ) published a new piece - with no paywall - on current opportunities in corn, cotton and wheat markets triggered by the Hormuz Crisis. Check it out 👇.

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

The 🐿️ is a ‘kid of Fukuyama’. I left school in 1989. That summer, Francis Fukuyama’s original essay “The End of History?” was published in The National Interest. I was a teenager waiting tables in London to save for a pre-university tour of South America when the news of the fall of the Berlin Wall came through on the radio of the restaurant kitchen.

By the time Fukuyama’s essay had become a book - The End of History and the Last Man (1992) - I had completed my first internship in the European research department at Cazenove, a London stockbroking firm (now part of JP Morgan). Communism and fascism had been comprehensively defeated. There was no politico-economic belief system that could rival liberal democracy. We had reached history’s ‘telos’ (endpoint).

It’s been a pretty rough decade for us kids of Fukuyama. We spent 20 years patting ourselves on the back before the cracks - the GFC, opioid crisis, 2016 populism eruption etc. - became impossible to ignore. As for the core tenet that economic liberalization spawned political freedom? LOL!

The ‘triumph’ of Western liberal democracy has collided with a messy multipolar reality. Instead of our free-market utopia, we now have the return of state-directed industrial policy and the weaponization of global trade.

The geopolitical architecture we spent our careers taking for granted - anchored by a hyper-financialized Pax Americana - is being systematically dismantled. Frankly, the overt grift is pretty sickening too.

For a macro rodent conditioned by the post-Cold War peace dividend, this regime shift demands a rewiring of mental models. The world of perfectly optimized supply chains and structurally suppressed inflation (and volatility - this is even more important) is over.

Turns out that history didn’t end in 1989 after all. It just went on a long sabbatical, and is now back with a vengeance to remind us that hard assets and ‘just in case’ supply chains are pretty much all that matters.

The ongoing war in the Middle East has accelerated a major de-grossing of the BUSHY™ beta portfolio and the Acorn book that was already well underway. It started in early February. If the conflict ends up with $200 oil tipping the global economy into a recession, that risk cut was insufficiently aggressive.

It turns out that my bias towards relative economic winners in a multi-polar world actually needs someone to win.

That said, BUSHY™ only gave up 0.18% last week - OK during a pretty rough week for risk assets. The numbers look great versus benchmark and the S&P but you can’t eat relative performance. It’s time to pull the drains up!

Will do our weekly review of that portfolio and of the Acorn positions after completing the unfinished business from yesterday.

New “Malthus Ag Trade” Implementation

When thinking about structuring the “Revenge of Malthus” Ag basket, this weekend’s US attack on Kharg Island focuses the mind.

Read more

I know that there is a ton of 🐿️ in your inbox in past 24 hours. I am sending the ‘Start the week’ note you early as it is (i) ready and (ii) there are lot of portfolio changes (including in Asia) to absorb.

In case you missed it, the weekend note tackled the ailments facing emerging market tech stocks. An EMQQ post-mortem! Check it out.

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

What a week! I thought I had done an extensive job of de-grossing the portfolio over the course of February. Sometimes, you can never sell enough.

Quick PSA for subscribers: a lot happened last week and I was updating members in The Drey in real time (e.g., closing hedges and adding to the de-grossing list).

Easy joining instructions: 1. Hit the button below (which takes you to the The Drey’s waiting room on Discord; 2. Reply to this email with your Discord username / handle. Easy!

It's about time I joined The Drey!

2026 had been way too easy so far. A punch in the nose felt completely inevitable. I felt that I was pretty defensively positioned going into last week but a 258 basis point drawdown in my BUSHY™ beta portfolio (plus some Acorn gut punches) really stung!

Last week was pretty active. Further de-grossing. Let’s dig in.

Read more

In case you missed it, the weekend note grappled with a key ‘battleground stock’ in the current SaaSacre™ - Adobe. The 🐿️ probably managed to upset everyone! Check it out.

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

The BUSHY™ beta portfolio closed the month +11.95%1 on the year. I am going to refrain from making any commentary on the weekend activity in Iran or guess as to the likely impact on the portfolio.

We have plenty of energy and gold exposure at the moment. We are also very defensively positioned currently, with a high cash balance and plenty of hedges. More on that later.

In Benny and my conversation with a couple of weeks ago, we discussed how equity supply (in the form of ECM placements and IPOs) was typically the reason that bull markets in Chinese equities come to an end. Bankers get blamed for everything these days…

A surge of IPO activity in the US is typically a signal that we are getting close to a local top in markets. 2021 worked a treat on that front. However, this is more of a sentiment signal than a law of physics.

The reason for this is that the impact of share buybacks and companies being taken private (corporate and PW M&A) reduces the supply of equity by a much greater number than can be replenished by bunch of ECM bankers in New York.

I think that is all about to switch in to reverse gear.

In the weekend note on Adobe we touched on the fact that a great deal of buyback activity in the SaaS sector was necessary to ‘sterilize’ the dilution resulting from large scale issuance of stock-based compensation (a traditional 🐿️ pet peeve).

Traditionally, buybacks overall remove a large chunk of stock supply from the market every single quarter once those blackout periods close.

Block’s announcement last week that they will be firing 40% of their employees has implications for share supply. Yes, fewer shares will be issued as SBC in the future but I would hazard that (i) this will not be the last of this type of restructuring; and (ii) the volume of shares from departing employees (from Block and elsewhere) hitting the market to pay back student loans, mortgages and school fees is about to rise sharply.

Of course, ‘white collar’ job losses also slow the pace of 401(k) savings hitting those index funds every month.

Plenty of ink has been spilled on the topic of AI data center capex by the hyper-scalers. In addition to crowding out credit markets to fund this spend, budgets for share buybacks will have to be shrunk aggressively.

On a related matter, and with what seems to be impeccably poor timing, those NY ECM bankers are lining up one of the largest cohorts of jumbo IPOs seen in history.

By the way, if you want a framework for how to value the space part of SpaceX (xAI is probably a liability!), I had a go in October 2024 (when the insatiably bullish Adam Jonas was estimating the entire space revenue TAM at $1 trillion by 2030):

Even if SpaceX only floats 5% of its equity at Elon Musk’s bogey / fantasy / ‘whatevs’ valuation of $1.5 trillion (only 150% of 2030 space revenue TAM!), that $75 billion deal will be 3 times the size of the Saudi Aramco IPO in 2019 that required the significant support of pretty much every sovereign wealth fund on the planet (as well as some significant ‘national service’ by local princes in Saudi) to get over the line.

SpaceX / Anthropic / Open AI and their advisers are clearly already sweating about sources of demand for all that paper. And they are pulling strings. The Nasdaq 100 index committee recently issued a consultation document proposing rule changes that would get these deals fast-tracked (with generous treatment around free float inclusion factors) for these jumbo new arrivals.

This would effectively allow these companies to sell vast quantities of unseasoned shares directly to the passive owners of the $400bn and any ETF or structured product (a lot!) benchmarked to the Nasdaq 100 index.

Thanks again to “Captain Passive” himself, , for highlighting the issue last week just in time for me to be able to comment ahead of the 27th February deadline. You can find a copy of my letter via the linked tweet below.

I stirred up a few former ECM luminaries to do the same including who took Amazon public almost 30 years ago. A great story that he shared with me last May.

And my pal Craig Coben with whom I picked apart the impending Coreweave IPO a year ago.

Craig went one better than my letter and penned this excellent column for the Financial Times. Flex! It is an piece so free to read for non FT subscribers (link via image below).

Craig makes a couple of brilliant points that I did not cover in my letter. The FT’s picture editor deserves the picture editor equivalent of an Oscar for that cover image!

Retired senior bankers ranting about fairness in markets is one thing. Let’s get back to the physics. Assuming even just a handful of these jumbo gets out, US markets have never been tested with such extreme supply.

An average large year for US IPOs of operating companies (ignore the SPACs and funds) is $50-60 billion of proceeds (apart from that brief moment of lunacy in 2021 when the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ dictated that Rivian was worth $100 billion - fully diluted market cap post its day 1 ‘pop’).

Stuffing the passive funds (via deal focused hedge funds warehousing allocations) will help those ECM Syndicate but I am not sure that it is going enough. The full suite of retail brokers will be lined up to help. Your phones will be peppered with texts from Robinhood, SoFi et al offering “exclusive” access to IPO stock.

I am old enough to remember when it was considered ludicrously irresponsible to put more than 5% of available shares in a US IPO down retail channels. Heigh ho.

Most of my smart readers will either studiously avoid those texts from Robinhood or play the ‘flip to passive’ trade. Word of warning - if everyone thinks there is an arbitrage, that arb tends to close fast!

More worrying for me is that these deals are launching just as the de-equitization props of share buybacks, 401(k) inflows and M&A bids from cashed-up PE funds are being removed from the market (they cannot raise funds after torching too much capital on SaaS LBOs).

The rodent would contend that the result of dropping $75 billion of SpaceX paper (plus the rest from OpenAI, Anthropic etc. etc.) at a concept valuation on top of that building above could have some fairly unpleasant consequences. What’s more none of those newly public companies are buying back stock any time soon.

Another reason to favour ex-US equity allocations. Go where the paper is in shorter supply! Not rocket science (sorry).

BUSHY™ and Acorn Review

Back to regular scheduling. Last week was kind on BUSHY™ but we brace for how markets to react to weekend’s Iran news when they open on Monday.

Read more

In case you missed it, in the weekend note which hit inboxes on Sunday morning, the 🐿️ launched the ShinyAcorns™ portfolio - our basket of precious metals miners for 2026 and beyond. Make sure you check it out before reading on as we will start this week with the implementation plan for the basket:

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

Also a quick head-up that John ‘JJ’ Johnston aka ‘’ joining us on Benny & The Squirrel on Thursday. JJ is a veteran futures trader and was trading gold in open outcry markets before the 🐿️ was born. He is full of trading wisdom and amazing stories. Given the topic of the weekend note, it’s a perfect time for us to have the chance to speak to him.

Oi! Did you Spill my Pint?

BUSHY™ trailed benchmark and the S&P this week. We made a couple of changes this week (raising cash). All details in the weekly review below. Current risk markets are looking to this rodent like that aggressive drunk in the corner of the pub that just accused you of knocking over his beverage…

ShinyAcorns™ Implementation

As mentioned in the quick video at the end of yesterday’s note (reposted below), most of the charts have had 45+ degree runs up and to the right over the past year.

Read more

In case you missed it, in the weekend note which hit inboxes on Sunday morning, the 🐿️ assuaged a nagging concern that the portfolio’s African exposure was simply gold mining beta in disguise:

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

A decent week for the 🐿️’s BUSHY™ beta portfolio. The fact that the hedge book is now creating a small drag on returns gives me some comfort that those positions may help in the event that the market moves against the portfolio’s core biases.

Plenty in the BUSHY™ and Acorn reviews this week - more additions to the hedge book; replacing uranium; reaction to the VAL/RIG offshore merger; what to do about Tencent; and managing the Korea ‘parabola risk’.

First, I wanted to do a quick review of headline macro risks. Those rodent whiskers are twitching again…

Read more

The ‘start the week’ note is so much more than maintenance this week. STW is stuffed with fresh ideas. A big uranium rethink (with some schmuck insurance). Plus important changes to BUSHY™ and Acorn books - with 3 new highly convex trades. On a Monday!

In case you missed it, in the weekend note which hit inboxes on Sunday morning, the 🐿️ attempted to get in the head of Ivan Glasenberg, the retired CEO and largest investor in Glencore:

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

A solid week for BUSHY™ beta portfolio - more than erasing the drawdown in Week 4.

Before we go to the full BUSHY™ and Acorn review (there have been a number of important changes), I want to spend a minute reflecting on my positioning in the nuclear / uranium trade. The 🐿️’s whiskers are twitching.

Read more

In case you missed it, the weekend note which hit inboxes on Sunday morning covered an interesting opportunity in the agriculture / food space. It involves a name from the 🐿️’s past that created an element of PTSD by proxy!

Subscribe via 🐿️ site, not Apple!

To a certain extent, after such a strong start to the year, BUSHY™ was overdue for a pull back. The 🐿️’s beta portfolio gave back 52bps on the week.

The damage largely came from precious metals exposure, the CTA allocation (they were long metals too!) and a left field mugging by the MSCI in Jakarta (more on that later).

Notwithstanding, the portfolio continues to hold up well against the Vanguard ‘Target Date’ benchmark and the suite of Multi / Real Asset ETFs that I track.

My inbox is stuffed full of hot takes on Friday’s sell off in precious metals and the Warsh appointment to the Fed. I do not have a strong view on the latter at present. Suffice to say, some of the breathless narrative about the new Chair’s plans reminds a bit of the Wall Street cheerleading around Bessent’s “3-3-3” economic plan.

Read more