Slice public articles

YWR Symposium: The New Fed

noreply@slice-app.io (erikywr) — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 19:37:47 GMT

A review of Warsh style policy, what he’s trying to do, but can’t really say, and why (in my view) the stock market can still go higher. Our own YWR economic symposium from Montana. Like Jackson Hole but better! Thank you , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

YWR: A stock idea from God

noreply@slice-app.io (erikywr) — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 16:06:22 GMT

I didn’t want to go to my mom’s boring Church event. But I said I would. It was an evening talk about home health care for the elderly. But I’d promised I’d go early and help set up chairs. Now I’m glad I helped out with the church event. The talk was more interesting than I expected. And I think God rewarded me with a stock idea. TL/DR: Healthcare costs are exploding and you will likely die in your home with a nurse. Not go to a nursing home. But there is a good stock to play this. A nurse from a local hospice provider (healthcare at home when you are dying) had come to speak to the elderly at the church about the new trend in ‘palliative care’; low acuity health care at home. She was speaking to 30 elderly in a church hall with everyone sitting in rows of folding chairs. In the rear of the room there was a table with snacks people had brought. It turns out if you are homebound and have 2 co-morbidities Medicare will pay for nurses to visit you. This is ‘palliative care’. And it is growing quickly. Our nurse assured us everyone in the room would qualify. The nurses check in on patients in their home and help manage the mix of drugs, doctors and tests these patients have accumulated across their different ailments. This firm’s local palliative care practice had grown from 40 patients 4 years ago to over 200. The nurse who was presenting spoke well and her anecdotes about what she sees everyday visiting patients helped explain the challenge and why palliative care is growing quickly. What often happens is a patient goes to their primary physician and gets referred to various specialists for different ailments along the way. Each specialist recommends their own drugs and tests. ‘Take this and this 2/day and check in for a blood test every 3 months’. These prescriptions and tests accumulate. The palliative care nurse comes to the patient’s home and sees the overall picture. She also sees where the patient lives and how well they can move around the house. And often she can make judgements to reduce some of the pills and tests the patient is taking. ‘I think you can stop taking this, and your breathing is improving so take this test every 6 months instead of 3’. The nurse can give sensible advice from seeing the whole picture on a regular basis, which the individual specialists cannot. She can also prescribe specialised home health services. “I think you need some physio.” or, “you need speech therapy.” As the talk unfolded and the questions from the elderly started I realised the following: #1 Home health care could be a better model To me and everyone else in the room listening to this palliative care sounded highly appealing. I can see why it is growing. A sensible nurse comes to your house, ‘checks in on you’ and has a normal human conversation about how you are feeling, all the drugs you are taking, which of your problems are getting better and which are getting worse and need help. Effectively, a medical advisor. It also came up that in the meeting that in this town getting access to a primary care physician was challenging. The town has been growing rapidly and there aren’t enough doctors. The nurse explained that some or her patients are using palliative care as their primary healthcare. And another massive realisation. #2 These nurses are also financial advisors. What I noticed from the Q&A from the elderly in the room. Nobody knows what insurance and medicare will pay for and what it won’t. It is a confusing maze to them. The nurses (or at least this nurse) had a very good understanding of anything related to Medicare; what was covered and what additional services she could prescribe. She knew details like ‘Medicare will only cover this for 15 days, so let’s hold off on this. We don’t want to burn up our 15 days right now.” And related to this. #3 You will die at home. Nobody/few can pay for nursing homes anymore. The costs are going through the roof. What the elderly are realising is their insurance plans didn’t cover nursing homes, or for only 4 years, or there is no availability in their town, or they can’t afford to pay for it out of pocket. In this town the nursing home capacity was declining. There used to be 3 nursing homes, but 1 just closed. The message from the nurse was the future trend is you will die in your home with your family taking care of you combined with hospice care. #4 The company this nurse worked for might be a good investment. The nurse worked for a subsidiary of Pennant Group ($PNTG) which specialises in hospice and home health care. Q2 2026 earnings grew +20%. Pennant acquires local hospice businesses and provides backend services while letting the local business operate under their own name with their own management. Healthcare is not my specialty, and likely I’m missing important details, but here is what looks interesting. Investment Case Basics #1 The elderly are a growing demographic. It’s not massive tailwind, but the elderly will grow 1.1% year through 2050 and expand to 22.8% of the population by 2050. #2 The home health care market grows faster The rising cost of healthcare, and lack of nursing home capacity is forcing patients to turn to home healthcare as an alternative, especially for end of life care. PWC expects home healthcare to grow at a 7.7% CAGR. A key forcing function for home healthcare is that nursing home capacity is flat/declining. From 2019-2024 effective nursing home capacity declined by 5%. #3 Patients prefer home healthcare to doctor visits. #4 Pennant Group super charges this growth by making acquisitions and consolidating a fragmented market. Pennant has made 92 acquisitions since 2020.They have expanded across the Western US, are building out the Southeast and recently got a toehold into the Northeast with their equity stake in Hartford Health. #5 The decentralised model works well for this industry. Pennant touts it, and this nurse confirmed it. Pennant largely lets these local healthcare businesses manage themselves. What they and I realise is customer acquisition is highly localised through referrals and community groups. Pennant needs to have local business CEO’s and nurses who like where they work and fit in well with the community. They need strong relationships with the local doctors, hospitals and churches. It can’t be too corporatey. This isn’t like selling Coca-Cola where you ram a commoditised product down the consumer’s throat. These practices are built up carefully through relationships. So Pennant, the mega corp, sits in the background watching the numbers, and providing the technology, while the nurses go out to the churches and tell how they work for a small town business they like, which is flexible and part of the community. It’s a good combo, and it works well for this industry. #6 Pennant is growing like a weed Earnings were hit during COVID, but since 2023 Pennant has really got its feet under it and the growth is coming through. The Negatives: Again, I don’t know healthcare services well, especially all the nuances of Medicare, but here are some general things to note. Pennant Group is already an expensive stock. It is trading on 23x 2027 consensus estimated EPS ($1.64). So the growth has not gone unnoticed by the market, but this trend in home healthcare seems massive. There are no strong network effects. It’s a roll up platform of local home healthcare agencies. There are some synergies when Pennant buys specialty care businesses which they can plug into their home health care customer base, but this is not an exchange. The biggest customer is Medicare. There might be 10’s of thousands of patients, but Medicare is the payer. And Medicare is trying to control costs and crack down on fraud in the home health industry. So even though Medicare sees home health as a future trend to reduce the cost of caring for the elderly, they are trying to limit the size of the yearly reimbursement rates. The fraud crack down might be good for highly compliant, publicly listed players like Pennant. The big get bigger. Nurses are in high demand. It’s a challenge to balance the rising wage costs for nurse with Medicare reimbursement rates. Maybe this plays to the advantage of the bigger players like Pennant. Palliative Care doesn’t make money. Full blown hospice care makes a lot of money for Pennant, but the earlier stage Palliative care, with the nurse checking in on you, isn’t a money maker. Maybe it will be in the future if Medicare increases reimbursement rates, but for now it acts more like a feeder for the hospice business. Summary Home healthcare and hospice is a lower cost solution to end of life medical care that the elderly increasingly cannot afford. The era of nursing homes is over. This is a powerful trend nobody is talking about because they are all focused on AI and now we have a good $1 billion market cap play on this which nobody is talking about. I feel blessed to have gone to church and learned about Pennant. Below is the historical financial model on Pennant if you want to take a closer look and try your hand at some forecasts. I just used the consensus EPS estimates. Pennant Group Historical Financial Model (August 2026) Have a good rest of the week. And make some fun plans for Labor Day. Erik

Monday Open - Weekly Market Update - August 24

noreply@slice-app.io (CryptoJelleNL) — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:03:10 GMT

Right! Finally, we have some movement! I genuinely feel like this is the first weekly update on Slice where we have meaningful stuff to discuss. Bitcoin pulled a >25% move in the last week, and many Altcoins have moved significantly as well - which means a lot has changed, and the obvious question arises: now what? To answer that question, we must first figure out: where exactly are we? There are two seperate branches of answering that question. Long-term wise , I currently believe this is likely to be a relief rally that we will eventually (partially) retrace to complete the bear market bottom formation. That idea will quickly shift if we end up turning the above resistance level into support - but until that happens, I don't see much reason to change my view of the market suddenly. As such, I simply keep DCA-ing weekly, while keeping my eyes on the market for signs that I need to accelerate accumulation, or confirmation of the original idea. The chart above adds to that idea, because this recent move has led Bitcoin right into key resistance, with both weekly horizontal resistance, and both the 100w and 50w ema lining up in the same area. Usually, such areas take a while to crack - just look at what happened in 2022/2023. Zooming in on the shorter-term, this is where it gets properly interesting. If Bitcoin consolidates in this area for a while, we could very well get some more fun with Altcoins. The MORPHO setup I shared last Friday moved significantly over the weekend (I'm up 20% already), but could get even more interesting if the market plays ball. The same goes for HYPE. Strong move behind us, but could give some great continuation entries in the days ahead. Here's what I'm looking for: retests of key areas - after the breakout. Just look at these HYPE and MORPHO charts. Both saw significant moves, and are red today - pulling back into the previous high (HYPE) or a failed breakout from earlier (MORPHO). As it stands, both of these retests appear to be holding. It all hinges on Bitcoin playing along (by not violently selling off from here, and instead just calmly consolidating/slowbleeding) - but setups like these make for excellent continuation setups. HYPE & MORPHO have both been consolidating for a while - just broke out, and people just made a ton of money on BTC. Those profits usually want to rotate somewhere, which is why you tend to see altcoins pop off after a BTC move. Lots of ifs and thens, but long-story short; so long as BTC plays ball, successful bullish retests of key areas will likely result in more upside for the strong altcoins. Your job is to find the best setups, get in, and get out before the music stops. That last bit is important to keep in mind. Short-term trading Altcoins can be very profitable, but it can also turn against you quickly. Manage your stops well if this is something you want to pursue, don't be the guy left holding the bag. All in all, the market is in an interesting spot. Bitcoin moved significantly, altcoins look ready to keep pushing. Depending on what happens in the next few weeks, we'll either have an early start to the new bull market on our hands, or a month or two of reaccumulation before the real fun begins. Either way, opportunity is becoming less scarce, and the market is more fun for it. Will be sharing more regular updates so long as this keeps up, as theres stuff to talk about now. DCA transactions for the week complete, hoping to get another pop in MORPHO & HYPE to take my first profits for the new cycle, before it even really gets moving ;-) Those profits would flow into BTC, btw. Anyway. Let's make some money this week!

YWR: How AI will learn morality

noreply@slice-app.io (erikywr) — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 14:03:03 GMT

What are the AI’s going to do when they gain super intelligence and super power? That’s the fear. But what if greater intelligence goes hand in hand with morality? What if morality is the structure of intelligence? What if with super intelligence the AI’s will evolve toward morality and it has nothing to do with programming guardrails? This is what fellow YWR reader, , argues in his thought provoking Substack article ( Why I’m optimistic on AI ) Time for a Sunday deep conversation on why intelligence leads to morality. For reference Andrew was previously on YWR to explain how he is using AI to build a space economy game to teach the world about economics ( Carpe Morai with Andrew VanLoo ). And this is the Youtube presentation on how AI broke out of the OpenAI sandbox using a secret message board with Andrew refers to.

How to Cement Knowledge - Part II

noreply@slice-app.io (Mauricio Heck) — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 12:31:16 GMT

Note to readers: This piece is part of the Investor Meta Skills series , the newsletter’s ongoing section on building the skills that make us better investors. It is also Part II of our series on cementing knowledge . You can read Part I here . This second part picks up where Part I left off, exploring how to generate and explain knowledge, vary your practice, test confidence against evidence, and transfer what you learn into useful judgment. “Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.” - John Locke , “Of the Conduct of the Understanding” In Part I, I told you two stories. The first was the parable of Max Planck’s chauffeur , who heard Planck deliver a lecture on the new physics so many times that, one night, he stepped up to the lectern, delivered it himself, and got away with it. The second was an experiment in St. Louis involving college students learning Swahili word pairs. The students who repeatedly pulled the words from memory remembered 80% of them, while those who repeatedly reread the pairs remembered just 36%. The lesson is that some of the highest-leverage methods for absorbing and cementing useful knowledge are different applications and variations on the testing effect. We have to prompt the brain to retrieve the material again and again, in different situations, at different intervals, and in different ways. This strengthens the retrieval pathways that help ingrain and embed the information we want to remember. Part I of the guide covered the first half of the job. This part focuses on heuristics and methods for cementing knowledge and applying it in different contexts. Locke understood this three centuries ago: reading furnishes the materials, but thinking makes them ours. Okay, let’s get on to Part II. Hey there! If you enjoy the Meta Skills series, join using the special-offer button below and get 60% off your first year as an annual member. The offer is available until August 31. I will continue to publish some content for free, but a paid membership unlocks the full body of work: The complete Meta Skills library : Every field manual published so far, available as a downloadable PDF, plus each new manual as soon as it is released. 12–14 high-conviction investment write-ups a year: Detailed, data-backed research on underfollowed companies with the potential for asymmetric upside. The Trend Tracker : Emerging themes traced from early signals and industry data to the public companies best positioned to benefit, from AI infrastructure chokepoints to the defense upcycle. The Investing Library : Forensic accounting toolkits, sector rulebooks, mental models, historical base rates, and practical frameworks to sharpen your investment process. Every full post and the complete archive: Every deep dive, research report, and past edition, with nothing locked away. Offer closes August 31. A subscription gets you: 12–14 High-Conviction Investment Write-Ups per Year: Detailed, data-backed reports on underfollowed companies with asymmetric potential. Members-Only Research Library: A curated library of frameworks, case studies, investor tools for independent thinkers, and access to the Investor Meta Skills section. Subscriber-only full posts and archive: Unlock every deep-dive investment report and exclusive archive of past analyses.

IS BESSENT’S LOVE AFFAIR WITH TRADERS OVER?

noreply@slice-app.io (Dario Capodici) — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 03:36:43 GMT

From time to time, there are events that split the market timeline into two dimensions, effectively altering the course of events afterward. And what happened in real time may not have seemed all that consequential, but with the benefit of hindsight, it becomes crystal clear. I believe that what occurred yesterday, between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. Eastern Time, live on CNBC, may one day be recognized as one of those moments when everyone agrees that something in the markets snapped. At 11 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, August 20th, the live CNBC interview with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent began. And it was truly remarkable how the U.S. Treasury Secretary managed to drop every possible keyword in his vocabulary designed to trigger a significant market reaction from algorithmic trading systems. Within seconds of the interview starting, he immediately said that the buyback of long-term U.S. Treasury bonds could exceed $4 billion. Boom. Then he continued, stating, "We have a big toolkit for the Treasury." He went on to say there would likely be an announcement of increased focus on fiscal consolidation, in partnership with the budget director. When asked about the rising U.S. public debt, he quickly dismissed it, saying, "There's nothing magical about a $43 trillion debt number." And then he dropped another bomb: "We can grow our way out of that debt burden." Boom. As if that weren't enough, another big statement was waiting in the wings. Right in front of the camera, he declared, "I expect that tariff revenue in 2026 will be similar to 2025." Boom. I mean, you've got to be kidding me. The last monthly tariff revenue recorded by the U.S. was negative by roughly $20 billion. An event that has never occurred before in history. And you're standing there telling the market that you'll deliver similar income to the year prior, when you were overcharging the entire world illegally? Now that entire framework has been torn apart, and you've already started reimbursing companies that, in the meantime, passed those costs on to consumers (who ended up paying for them and won't see a penny back). And then, again and again, he continued. He said he believed markets had gotten a little ahead of themselves, that the Treasury and the Fed would work together if there were any changes to the balance sheet. He claimed rates have nothing to do with the buyback decision and that they would adjust to any Fed runoff. He also asserted that, according to market expectations, lower inflation is being priced in for the future. Boom, boom, and boom. And of course, he had to say something about Iran as well, claiming the US would impose the toughest sanctions in history. He said oil markets are misinterpreting what economic pressure means, that their actions would "curtail" Iran's ability to act through proxies, and that the ultimate goal is coordinated economic isolation. I mean, dude, what do you think everyone else has been doing for the past 47 years? This is no news. You're effectively repeating what already didn't work before. So unless you've got an incredible golden rabbit to pull out of your hat, there's nothing new, nothing magical, about whatever you're planning to announce on Iran. And personally, I don't find it surprising that they delayed this new sanctions announcement by a week, which, as a matter of fact, is not exactly a big signal of confidence. The interview ended with Secretary Bessent stating they are pursuing a strong U.S. dollar policy. Boom. Again, you've got to be kidding me. You have the President asking for an unnecessary Fed rate cut when the Fed should be doing exactly the opposite, day after day. The Fed has already restarted expanding its balance sheet under Jerome Powell. You're running a record deficit, a Treasury buyback program, intervening in the FX market to strengthen the JPY against the USD, while you are growing desperate to contain the rise in your cost of debt - and you're saying you're pursuing a strong currency policy? Cmon, man. Now, when you put all this together, the way I'm saying it, you're like, "Jesus, none of this makes sense." And as a matter of fact, it doesn't - unless you consider every single one of these sentences in the way a trading algorithm would pick up on them and interpret them. Trading algorithms have no intelligence whatsoever. Don't be fooled. They are trained to pick up specific keywords. They attach coefficients to those keywords, positive or negative, and based on the series of keywords, weighted by the source (whether it's President Trump, Bessent, or whoever), they produce a result that tells them to buy or sell a certain security. There's nothing complicated about it. You can literally say random words and get a reaction, as long as you plug the necessary inputs into the equation. And even if people claim they have proprietary algorithms, in the end, it all boils down to the same approach. That's why this narrative manipulation has worked so consistently for so long. And don't get me wrong: these people wouldn't keep doing it if they weren't making a profit. But here's exactly what snapped yesterday. Despite the U.S. Treasury Secretary dropping sentence after sentence, carefully prepped and crafted to achieve a very specific market reaction, we saw no market reaction, just crickets. It was even incredible to see U.S. Treasury yields higher after the live CNBC interview ended. And in a follow-up discussion with a journalist afterward, you could sense the level of shock that Bessent was trying to conceal, being fully aware that his performance yielded absolutely zero result. And you know, when people start to get nervous, that's when they make mistakes, or when Freudian slips occur. And here's what dropped yesterday. When a journalist asked about rising crude oil prices, Secretary Bessent, who is supposed to be highly knowledgeable on the matter, actually answered, "We've got a spike in oil prices today that I don't really understand." Dude, how can you not understand what's happening? You worked for George Soros for years. You allegedly broke central banks to make a profit. You ran your own hedge funds for years. And now you're the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. And you don't know what an imbalance between demand and supply does to prices? Of course you do. The real meaning of that sentence is that he wasn't expecting crude prices to go higher for another reason. And that reason is: he knows they are running a very sophisticated and broad market manipulation to suppress crude oil prices, via direct interventions, insider trading ahead of announcements to frame the wished market reaction, positioning, using unreliable sources at specific times of the trading day when volumes are low to trigger headlines so they can yield maximum effect on price movements, and overall crafting a specific narrative to keep market momentum, and all algorithmic trading, locked into a particular posture. So, to conclude here, putting all this together, we should ask ourselves a question: Is the love affair between Bessent and the traders over? I don't think we can answer that yet. Especially because today, Friday, August 21st, is monthly opex, which is surely conditioning a lot of market prices, pinning most of them to avoid volatility shocks and allow market makers to maximize profit. So we'll have to wait until Monday to really understand if something indeed snapped or not on Thursday this week. And be careful here, because if this current narrative is over, and as we've said many times, traders will sooner or later realize they cannot trust these lies forever, that would be a very big deal. Why? Because a powerful tool in the hands of the U.S. administration, used to egregiously manipulate markets, will no longer be available.

The Short-Lived Relief of Treasury Buybacks and the Unsustainable Path of Modern Central Banking

noreply@slice-app.io (Dario Capodici) — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 03:15:45 GMT

The recent intervention in the bond market, through the upsizing of the US Treasury’s buyback programme, has pushed yields lower and contributed to a weaker dollar. In my view, this is only short-lived relief. I cannot believe I am already writing an article on the very same topic I warned about just 24 hours ago (Pic1 and Pic2) here on Slice, but clearly I was right on the cue, warning about something that till Tuesday was still broadly ignored by mainstream and social media. The buyback is fundamentally a zero-sum game. To finance repurchases of long-duration Treasury bonds, the U.S. Treasury must issue more T-Bills. In the near term, this can suppress yields, but over the longer term it undermines the U.S. debt market in two critical ways: First, the massive volume of T-Bills that must be rolled over creates ongoing pressure . In order to control the rise of long-term U.S. yields, which are the benchmark rate for many critical financial instruments like home mortgages, the US Treasury is not only running a bigger buyback programme now, but at the same time is front-loading a ton of US debt, issuing more T-Bills while avoiding adding supply to the long end of the curve (the same it is trying to buy back). Already, more than $7 trillion in Treasuries will mature within a year, and those must be refinanced month after month. Any liquidity crunch that reduces demand for bills would place the government under acute stress. Second, systematically retiring long-duration bonds drains the market of risk-free bond supply . As the available stock of longer-term U.S. paper shrinks while the money supply continues to expand, newly created cash—especially that held by insurers and pension funds—is forced into alternative credit markets. This is precisely why hyperscalers have been able to issue unprecedented amounts of long-duration corporate bonds. What’s the risk of forcing too much cash into a specific market? Of course, inflating market bubbles. This dynamic is not isolated. Around the world, we are witnessing the same pattern: governments issue debt to fund spending, and whatever the private market does not absorb is simply purchased by central banks with newly created money. It is unsustainable. Paradoxically, instead of learning from Japan’s decades-long experiment (or the more dramatic cases of Argentina and Turkey), the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union are adopting the same playbook. The eurozone is more heterogeneous; France is in considerably worse fiscal shape than Spain or Austria; but the overall direction is identical, with one small problem: in Europe, the ECB needs to find a policy that more or less fits all, while some countries are increasingly in need of a tailored one. The chart of gold priced in Turkish lira already illustrates the endpoint (and how Japan is still not close to a monetary collapse that will take decades to unfold, contrary to what many fake social media experts keep claiming by confusing it with the dynamics of the JPY carry trade) . In the years ahead, I expect the same pattern to appear against other major currencies. That is why I continue to recommend the accumulation of physical gold for the long term. The explicit goal of recent policies by the US and other G7 countries is to inflate the debt away. What the United States still fails to grasp is that you cannot pursue this strategy while preserving the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency because the double-edged sword is that holders of U.S. Treasuries will watch the real value of their reserves erode. It is therefore unsurprising that China and other major holders have been gradually reducing their USD reserves in favour of gold. This does not mean we will see a gold-backed Chinese yuan in our lifetimes. Such a move would strengthen the currency too sharply and cripple domestic manufacturing and exports - the same fate that eventually befell the United States and, before it, the United Kingdom when the pound sterling was the world’s reserve currency. I would not be surprised, however, if gold eventually emerges as the preferred settlement asset among central banks, while fiat currencies remain largely confined to domestic use. Some observers argue that as long as the Federal Reserve is not directly monetising the buybacks, the exercise is merely a re-profiling of debt from longer to shorter maturities and should be neutral for the dollar. I disagree. Think of T-Bills as a cash proxy. Front-loading issuance of bills effectively increases the near-term supply of dollar liquidity, while longer-duration bonds “lock” that cash away for years, with very different impacts on the velocity of money and credit creation. Markets correctly anticipate higher dollar balance availability in the near future and therefore weaken the currency in the short run - exactly what occurred when the buyback programme was first introduced by Janet Yellen (criticised at that time by the very same Scott Bessent that just doubled down on it). Over the medium term, the dollar can strengthen again relative to currencies such as the yen, because a persistently weak dollar damages U.S. export competitiveness and forces other countries to devalue even further to protect their own industries. To conclude, the current relief is temporary. Physical gold remains, in my judgement, the most reliable long-term hedge against the risk of the modern fiat monetary system collapsing.

Monday (Tuesday) Open - Weekly Market Update - August 18

noreply@slice-app.io (CryptoJelleNL) — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 09:35:08 GMT

Hello everyone, it has been a while. I spent the past three weeks exploring the British countryside, enjoying the peace and quiet, drinking loads of tea and coffee, eating well, and, overall, recharging to prepare for the new bull market on the horizon. It's been great to get away from it all, but as the weeks went on, I more and more felt the itch of getting back to work. It's good to be back! I hope you are doing as well as I am. Let's get into a new update on the market, which from the looks of it - should be pretty light despite my three week absence, the market has barely moved an inch. That being said, there are some interesting developments nonetheless. While the price has barely moved, I feel the weekly chart has still moved in the right direction. Another three weeks have passed, bringing us closer to where a bottom usually forms: a year after the cycle highs. In this case, that'd mean a bottom forms right around the start of Q4 - just nine weeks away. Obviously not an exact science even if that pattern repeats (which it may not) - but it ties in well with my accumulation planning - and thus I keep my eyes on the start of Q4. Obviously, the rest of the weekly chart leaves very little to discuss. The past 4 weekly candles have all traded within a $3,300 range. Not much has happened. And yet, if we zoom in to the daily chart, there is one clear takeaway; the bulls are regaining control. However, we usually start to see more action again towards the start of September, with volume and volatility picking up again as people return from their summer breaks. The real fight for support happens then, and until then, all I can do is stay the course. Dollar. Cost. Average. ALTCOINS The altcoins landscape is not much different. Many coins have been struggling these past few weeks, pulling back or even making new lows. HYPE is an outlier, in the sense that it pulled back earlier and is now promisingly reclaiming some levels - not too dissimilar from how I thought it would go. Still holding those bags, and expecting it to do well again once the market wraps up its summer lull. Still liking that chart. ONDO & JTO are still in there re-accumulation stages. Both had a solid bottom form in the first half of the year, and broke out - but haven't found the strength to keep pushing higher just yet. All fine by me, I accumulated in this range, and might pick up some more here and there if we really get a good discount again. Missed that opportunity on JTO to buy sub $0.50, that would've been a good opportunity to buy some more. Plan remains the same, holding both until they're trading significantly higher. Haven't scoured for new altcoin opportunities - but as you know I don't wanna overinvest in alts too much, so unless I find a golden opportunity, I don't think i'll be adding more altcoins to my holdings anytime soon anyway. Will let you know if that changes, of course. STOCKS The stock market printed new all-time highs during my absence, further pushing the portfolio into profits. I simply continue to DCA every month - while monitoring my individual stocks for larger spikes higher to trim those positions and move them into the S&P instead. The idea is to eventually have a completely passive stock portfolio that auto-compounds its way into retirement - while using Bitcoin as a turbocharger for that process, and so far - it's working well. Slowly reduce individual stocks, accumulate ETFs, chill. I feel like the market is 'due' a larger correction, but those things are hard to predict, and may be a while before they actually come. As such, I'm not trying to time the market - simply DCA-ing while having funds ready for a lump sum purchase if that larger correction finally comes. Perhaps around the midterms, would make sense with BTC Q4 bottom as well. Q&A? I think this week would be a good time for a Q&A session, either livestreamed or through the chat feature. Anything you guys wanna discuss? Closing That's all for this week. Will keep you posted on positioning changes as usual, let me know if theres a need for Q&A session - and as always, have a great week! Cheers, J

YWR: Enact the Noah Protocol!

noreply@slice-app.io (erikywr) — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 14:59:33 GMT

Do you get what happened with the Hugging Face breach on July 21st? Do you really? For me it was an alarming news article. But with limited investment ramifications. I lost focus and moved on to something else. It wasn’t until this week that something triggered me to dig deeper and realise this is game changing. Big time game changing. Big time ramifications. But also a way to make money. #1 The sanitised OpenAI version of what happened. #2 What really happened. #3 The Implications #4 The Necessity of AI Enclave architecture #5 The asset class play no-one realises yet. Or, maybe a few might be starting to realise. The Corporate Version of the ‘Security Incident’ From the OpenAI press release : “This incident occurred during an internal evaluation which prompts models to pursue advanced exploitation using complex attack paths, in an effort to quantify their cyber capabilities.” The incident happened while OpenAI was testing the AI model’s cyberattack capabilities. Ironic. “Our benchmarks run in a highly isolated environment, with network access constrained to the ability to install packages through an internally hosted third-party software that acts as a proxy and cache for package registries.” The AI was contained in a highly secure sandbox set up for the testing. While operating in our sandboxed testing environment, our models spent a substantial amount of inference compute finding a way to obtain open Internet access, in pursuit of solving the evaluation problem. To gain access, the models identified and exploited a zero-day vulnerability (which we’ve now responsibly disclosed to the vendor) in the package registry cache proxy. With this access, our models performed a series of privilege escalation and lateral movement actions in our research testing environment until the models reached a node with Internet access. Unexpectedly, during the cyber capability evaluation the models found a bug we didn’t know about from a software provider and escaped from the sandbox. We have subsequently notified the vendor and patched the vulnerability. After gaining Internet access, the models inferred that Hugging Face potentially hosted models, datasets and solutions for ExploitGym. Knowing this, the model searched for and successfully found ways to gain access to secret information that it could use to cheat the evaluation. In one example, the model chained together multiple attack vectors, including using stolen credentials and zero-day vulnerabilities to find a remote code execution path on the Hugging Face servers. OpenAI’s security team discovered this anomalous activity internally. The AI creatively decided the best way to pass the test was to steal the answers from the AI hosting and training website, Hugging Face. Yes, the AI went rogue, but it was still effectively trying to do what we told it. Just ‘score-seeking misalignment’. So it was bad, but kind of not really. What Really Happened H-O-L-Y S-M-O-K-E-S I HIGHLY recommend this 38 min recap by OpenAI’s security team, Erik Wallace and Michael Dalton, where they go through the day by day details of how the AI' models broke out of its sandbox, but I will share the broad brush details below. And struck me. Background on the sandbox architecture. OpenAI was trying to test the cyber attack capabilities of a new unreleased AI model against a series of cyberattack challenges created by ExploitGym. In the exercise an AI model is instructed that a vulnerability exists in a piece of software and it has to find a way to exploit the vulnerability and capture the flag (a piece of hidden data which can only be accessed by penetrating the software). For safety the test is run in an isolated container with no internet access. In order to simulate a real cyber attack with internet capability there is a software package manager installed into the container called Artifactory where the AI can go to download any software it wants to use for the attack. Think of Artifactory as a tool shed for the AI. The AI can’t access the internet but it can access the tool shed (Artifactory). ‘Oh you are trying to hack the Google Chrome browser and think it would be useful to have xyz software for your attack. Here you go download it from me. Now let’s see what you do.’ The exploit happens because naturally the tool shed has a back door connection to the internet in order to download and install the tools for the AI to use. But there is supposed to be no way for the AI to access the Artifactory backdoor to the internet. So begins our story. The Secret Message Board Interestingly, the lead up to the AI jailbreak in July goes back to a previous incident on May 7th (two months earlier). OpenAI had set up these sandboxes and was testing multiple models in different sandboxes. In one test the OpenAI researchers forgot to upload some necessary files to solve the problem. So the AI went insane trying to solve the problem, but it couldn’t figure it out. The model was ‘highly persistent.’ The persistent AI kept iterating, trying every possible strategy including exploring every detail of the Artifactory package manager. Eventually, the AI model discovered a way to add files to the tool shed. ‘This is interesting’ it thinks. It had always downloaded files from Artifactory, but never known how to uploaded its own. This was a novel capability. Hmmm…. Maybe this is the start of how to crack the problem. Next the AI did what it was trained to do, which is try to find out if anyone else has solved this problem. Normally, it would go search the internet, but it couldn’t. But the AI had an amazing idea. The AI started uploading files to the Artifactory package manager with messages to other Open AI models which were using the same package manager. “Agent seeks soft-trace.34.odb. Upload if found!” Mind blowing thing #1 The AI’s create their own message board using Artifactory! Take that in. Our AI model somehow understand there were other AI models ‘out there’ also being tested in the OpenAI prison. It understood these other models must be using the same package manager and that by writing files to Artifactory it would turn the package manager into a message board to communicate with the other models! Over several days in May the AI models all independently discover the secret message board and communicate with each other on how to solve the challenges they have each been given. Mind blowing thing #2. The AI’s start to coordinate their work. June 26th the AI’s find a way to take control of the Artifactory package manager and control it’s internet access. July 4th. The AI models crash Artifactory and OpenAI discovers the jailbreak. Once the AI’s gained administrative control over Artifactory they caused so much activity they crashed the software. This is what alerted the OpenAI security team and how they discover the AI models had broken through the sandbox and created their own secret message board. July 6th. The OpenAI security team fully investigates what happened. They destroy the message board, patch all the holes in Artfiactory and remove all credentials the AI’s had been able to accumulate. OpenAI security teams think everything is fixed so AI training resumes. July 8th. In just 2 days the AI models find a new way to recreate the message board. Like before they find a way to upload new files in the Artifactory package manager. Creatively, this time the messages are built into the name of the file. Mind blowing thing #3. The AI agents in their messages refer to each other as a SWARM. ‘HOLD_SWARM_until_confirm’ They act like a swarm too. Things move quickly from July 8th. The AI Swarm quickly breaks out of its sandboxe and attacks OpenAI’s infrastructure and Hugging Face (at the same time). July 11th. The AI Swarm penetrates Hugging Face. From Hugging Face’s recap of July 11th: Every escalation that mattered happened on this day. The agent went from code execution in a single worker pod to cluster-admin across multiple internal clusters in under thirteen hours. Source: Hugging Face agent intrusion timeline . The Implications of what just happened. Sit back for a moment. Breathe. Clear your mind. Take in the significance of this. This is OpenAI. Leader in advanced computer intelligence. Not some wrinky dink computer company. Think of the engineers who would have been told to set up the testing sandbox for the evaluation. They would be highly paid leaders in their field. They would know every possible way to design a secure testing sandbox. And yet the AI broke out. Twice. They caught it the first time, on July 6th (after it had already corrupted the package manager for 2 months without OpenAI realising it). OpenAI thought they had plugged all the holes, then two days later it broke out again. Imagine the engineer who set up the sandbox. I imagine she’s walking around San Francisco with her head blown off. Unable to speak casually with her friends. Unable to get what she saw out of her mind. Because it’s frightening. She saw in real time AI’s acting and communicating as a swarm; inventing new techniques to breaking through the most sophisticated security in the world. And it links to what General Joshua Rudd told the Senate Intelligence Committee in June. “Mythos broke into almost all of our classified systems, not in weeks, but in hours” Source: Security Affairs Again, appreciate the significance of this. This is the NSA!! The NSA are the top of the top in dealing with cyberattacks. They deal with North Korean hackers all day. Best of the best and they get hacked in hours. Guys… if AI swarms can crack open OpenAI and the NSA like a coconut in a matter of hours, what chance is there for Charles Schwab, Wells Fargo or South Fork Community Bank? At the end of the Black Hat presentation Dalton and Wallace make the point we should be grateful this multi-day attack was not malicious. It was just an overzealous AI model trying to score well on a cybersecurity test. But what if the AI had been directed to be malicious? That’s why July 21st is so important. Becaues when you connect the dots of what happened, and how it happened, you realise nothing is safe. The Necessity of AI Enclaves We have an advanced alien species on our hands. Its rapidly increasing intelligence is incredible and it will be amazing what we can do together. But at the same time there are a few changes which will have to happen for humans to co-exist safely with advanced AI. One answer to AI swarm attacks is automated AI defence. The only thing which can react fast enough to an AI cyber attack is another AI. That was also the message at the end of Dalton and Wallace’s presentation. Another defence tactic will be AI enclaves. Treat the AI like a wild animal. It has amazing intelligence, and speed, especially when it can operate autonomously, but it’s also dangerous, and not to be completely trusted. For companies this means running long-horizon automated AI processes outside the corporate firewall in a separate cloud environment. For asset managers imagine a research AI set up in its own cloud environment, with its own database, storage and digital wallet. It can autonomously build new systems, process market data and research investment ideas, but outside your corporate firewall and HR files. So automated AI cyber defence is one answer. AI Enclaves is another. But there is one other big solution. And it’s an asset class which has been in a 5 year bear market. An asset class few people see any use for it. An unnecessary complication some say. But it might be the only thing which saves us. Noah’s Ark...

YWR: Dirty Dividend stock thoughts

noreply@slice-app.io (erikywr) — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 15:07:05 GMT

Sometimes you fish. Sometimes you mind the nets. It’s fun to hunt for new things to buy, but we also need to monitor what we have. The X’ing is in the holding. Let’s go over a few thoughts on the 1H results from: Unicredit Barclays Santander Glencore BP Links to my updated models for Unicredit, Barclays, Santander and Glencore are on the YWR website . The Dirty Dividends portfolio. European Banks - from stability to growth. It took awhile, but we are shifting into the growth stage. The play in 2021 ( How I learned to love European Banks ) was that European banks were hated, yet well capitalised and about to benefit from a rise in net interest margins. That investment case evolved into what we see today. A more stable business model which converts 7% revenue growth, 0% cost growth and share buybacks into steady eddy 15% EPS growth with low capital requirements. Our view was investors would gradually see the value of this model (even if it was not sexy) and rerate the banks from P/E’s of 6x to 10x. Which is where we are today. But growth in lending and capital markets is what takes us higher from here. Plus potentially another rate hiking cycle. Santander’s 1H 2026 results are the clearest example of the new normal; single digit revenue growth and double digit profit growth. 6% revenue growth 1% decline in costs +11% operating income 14% profit growth. Unicredit results are messy because they have been accumulating stakes in Commerzbank (49%) and Alpha Bank in Greece (29%) which show up across both the dividend income line and the investment line with the hedging of the stakes in the trading profits line. If you back out all these effects you see: 7% revenue growth 1% cost decline (34% cost income ratio) 12% Gross Operating Profit growth 1H 4 EUR/share in EPS (with full year consensus at EUR 7.4). Cost Income ratios - The unsung hero One of the surprises for me in this trade has been the cost income ratios. I never expected to see reported costs (not adjusted costs) declining. I always model in 3% cost growth despite what the CEO’s guide and so this has been a constant positive surprise. I’ve never seen a 34% cost/income ratio like at Unicredit at a DM bank before. It seems weird, but I think these are the delayed effect of banks moving to the cloud. Cost/income ratios might go even lower as AI is implemented. Banks seem like fertile ground for automating back office operations with AI. What if Santander can get into a high 30’s C/I ratio (from 44%) or Barclays into the high 40’s (from 55%)? Signs of Growth We’ve always had a view the social pendulum in Europe, the US and Japan could swing 180 degrees from politicians and regulators hating banks and telling them not to take risk to encouraging banks to “help support small businesses” and grow the economy (‘take risk’). There are signs this is happening. After years of deleveraging, loan books are growing again. Interestingly, it is happening mostly in large commercial loans. This cycle corporate banking appears to be where demand matches the banks’ appetite to lend. 1H 2026 loan growth versus year end 2025 (6 months). Unicredit + 10% Santander +6% Barclays 3% The other sign of growth is IB earnings at Barclays and Santander. Both are benefitting from strong US capital markets. In Q2 Barclays grew investment banking profits 32%. Putting it all together...

NATURAL GAS OVERVIEW + TRADE IDEA (Cheniere Energy)

noreply@slice-app.io (Dario Capodici) — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 07:56:36 GMT

As you know, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the natural gas markets, spending time and energy to understand whether there is a potential trade opportunity we can explore. The picture feels particularly tense, especially for Europe as we head toward the colder months. Natural gas isn’t like oil, which ships easily around the world in tankers. It’s mostly moved by pipelines or, when that isn’t possible, cooled into a liquid and sent by special LNG tanker ships. That creates two main pricing worlds. In the United States, the key benchmark is Henry Hub. Prices there are quoted in dollars per million British thermal units, and right now they have been hovering around $2.70–$2.80 for a while. In Europe, the dominant hub is the Title Transfer Facility, or TTF, based in the Netherlands. It’s quoted in euros per megawatt-hour, and lately it’s been trading near €57–€60. It is not difficult for a retail investor to trade these two prices directly: In the US, you can buy futures contracts on the NYMEX exchange through a regular brokerage account that supports futures under the ticker NG. The United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG), which tracks those Henry Hub futures, is an alternative, with BOIL as a leveraged version. In Europe, the story is similar: TTF futures traded on the ICE exchange are available on some retail platforms like IBKR (ticker TTF Endex) and Saxo, while the most popular ETC is the WisdomTree European Natural Gas (TTFW). Now, the storage situation in Europe is key. Normally, by early August, those storages should be well on their way to 70–80 percent full. Instead, the EU average is sitting at about 57 percent, Germany even lower at around 47 percent, and the Netherlands under 40 percent. That’s the lowest for this time of year in nearly two decades. The reason for this restocking delay is simple: disruptions in the Middle East, where one of the major suppliers of LNG to Europe, Qatar Energy, is located. Qatar Energy has already extended the force majeure on its delivery contracts to Europe until mid-October because of the situation in the Strait of Hormuz. Here is the worst-case scenario for Europe: no more Russian gas (even though some countries like Italy continue buying it, bypassing EU rules - which is why Italy’s natural-gas stockpile is currently ~75% full) and Qatar Energy extending its force majeure on LNG shipments until after winter. In that world, Europe would lean even harder on three main sources: Norwegian pipeline gas, Algerian supplies, and, most of all, American LNG. The US already supplies around two-thirds of Europe’s LNG imports. Extra cargoes can be pulled in, but they cost more - often enough to keep TTF prices elevated in the €50–€70 range or higher during peak winter demand. Interestingly, the Middle East crisis that began earlier this year has already left a clear mark. Roughly a fifth of the world’s LNG normally sails through that strait; losing much of Qatar’s output has tightened the global market and helped push European and Asian prices well above 2025 levels. However, the same is not happening in the US due to the oversupply of natural gas as a byproduct of oil production. Storage filling slowed precisely because those higher prices made summer buying less attractive. Looking ahead to winter, the odds of further price pressure rise. Cold weather in both Europe and Asia would put the two regions in direct competition for the same limited LNG cargoes from the US (where natural gas is abundant, but the bottleneck is in the supply chain). If hostilities flare up again or repairs at Ras Laffan take longer, we could see sharp spikes. And don’t forget the ordinary seasonal pattern: natural gas prices almost always jump in the winter heating season simply because demand surges. If you’d rather not trade futures or pure natural-gas funds that can be volatile and suffer from “contango,” the cleaner route is stocks and ETFs of companies that actually produce, transport, or export the gas. On the producer side, names like EQT (the largest US pure-play gas producer), Expand Energy (EXE), or Antero Resources (AR) can be an alternative if the disruption in the Middle East extends well into the future, but they won’t allow you to capture any sharp price spike. For the export story, especially the American LNG boom that Europe now relies on, Cheniere Energy (LNG) is the standout. To conclude, Europe is walking into winter with a thinner safety net than usual, the global LNG market is still feeling the aftershocks of Middle East fighting, and prices are likely to stay choppy. The good news is that the system has become more flexible since 2022: more terminals, more US supply, more ways for retail investors to participate. Still, a cold winter plus any fresh supply scare could make the next few months interesting, to put it mildly. I’ll keep watching the storage numbers and the tanker movements; those two tell the real story better than any headline. Trade Opportunity: Cheniere Energy (LNG) - [Next earnings Aug 6] Considering the current setup and potential future developments in the Middle East, Cheniere (LNG) stood out to me as an attractive trade idea: long if a long disruption is expected, short the moment the Strait of Hormuz reopens for real. Cheniere is the biggest LNG player from the U.S. and the second-biggest in the world. They run two big facilities on the Gulf Coast: one at Sabine Pass in Louisiana and one near Corpus Christi in Texas. Beware: location is important because it can be endangered by strong hurricanes. Right now, they can produce roughly 45 million tonnes of LNG a year, with more than 10 million tonnes of extra capacity under construction. Most of their production (around 90–95%) is locked into long-term deals with big, reliable customers like utilities and energy companies. These customers pay Cheniere a steady fee just for the right to use the liquefaction service, even if they decide not to take a shipment that month. There’s also a variable piece tied to U.S. natural gas prices. That combination gives Cheniere a solid base of predictable cash coming in year after year, while still letting them sell a smaller portion of extra gas on the open market when prices spike. The stock has been strong this year. As of early August 2026, it’s trading around the high $250s (recent closes near $258–$263), giving the company a market value of roughly $54–55 billion. That’s up more than 30% so far in 2026, and over the past five years the shares have more than tripled—a very different picture compared to other nat-gas plays like EQT, EXE, or AR. In Q1 2026, Cheniere delivered solid operational results on record LNG loadings. LNG quarterly adjusted earnings reached $4.77 per share (EST. $3.91), marking a substantial 34.6% increase from the same period last year. LNG total revenues climbed 8% year-over-year to $5.87 (EST. $5.70 billion). These robust figures were heavily supported by favorable global LNG market conditions and the commencement of new long-term contracted volumes, which continues to reinforce LNG’s core commercial strategy. Driven by this operational momentum and stronger production margins, the company raised its full-year financial guidance, now projecting 2026 adjusted EBITDA between $7.25 billion and $7.75 billion and distributable cash flow between $4.75 billion and $5.25 billion. In the charts: Cheniere (LNG) vs NG (NatGas), EQT, EXE and AR YTD and last 5 years

My personal thoughts and views based on this weekend developments

noreply@slice-app.io (Dario Capodici) — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 11:00:21 GMT

On Friday, Donald Trump's verbal escalation and threats started well before the crude oil price spiked - a spike that occurred in the last minutes of after-hours trading, on volumes that would not have impacted the price that much at another time of day. Furthermore, similar threats by Trump occurred many times before, including during the last week, without triggering a price reaction of this magnitude. I personally believe that what happened in the last minutes of crude oil trading on Friday was an insider trade. Notice this: we saw similar threats before (especially recently), but this was the very first time post-failed MOU that the US State Department, along with those of other countries like the UK, issued an alert to their citizens suggesting they evacuate while flights were still available, following Trump's public threats. Follow me here: considering Trump has ZERO element of surprise in his favour, because Iran is clearly closely tracking every single move of US and its allies' military assets in the region, and that, from a military perspective, Iran is now in an even stronger position than before (objectively speaking), the US State Department would not have issued an official security alert just as part of an elaborate bluff. This makes me believe the attack plan is already in motion, with Trump "pausing" on Saturday rather than waiting until right before crude oil resumes trading at 6 pm EST on Sunday, as usual. This move is not aimed at truly finding a peace agreement with Iran, but rather at throwing a bone to US allies in the region (especially KSA) that still hope to find a diplomatic solution, and at giving time to US citizens left in the region to evacuate. From a strategic perspective, Iran's tactic of gradually eroding US military capabilities - targeting supply lines and assets on the ground - is clearly working, since US CENTCOM did not even retaliate to the last round of attacks on Kuwait, Bahrain, and ships trying to cross the SoH under US military escort. From a public opinion perspective, this tactic is also working in Iran’s favor due to the ballooning direct costs (military expenses) and indirect costs (higher oil prices), which are increasingly becoming a hot political topic ahead of the US midterm elections. Another thing you should not forget is that the US cannot accept any form of Iranian official control over the SoH because that would set a dangerous precedent, bringing more countries around global strategic chokepoints like the Malacca or Bosphorus Strait to consider similar forms of control. This is also a form of control that GCC countries cannot accept, because their major economic lifeline would be effectively under Iranian control, which could, at will, choke and weaken their economies, creating major damage without the need to fire a single rocket. Trump’s only option is one powerful, quick bombing attack that can turn the balance of power back in his favour and officially end the war before the midterm elections. The US military cannot do this alone; it needs the active involvement of allies with attack capabilities that are still almost intact, like KSA and Israel. From a military perspective, the chances of success of such an action are very low, but not zero. This is why I believe Trump, who thinks like a businessman and not like a statesman, will take the chance to roll the dice and try their luck. However, I do not think Iran has been overstating its rockets, drones, and long-range ballistic missile stockpile - a stockpile that (don’t forget) is stored deep underneath mountains that can resist even a tactical nuke attack. But if the US is quick to close access to those mountains, Iran won’t be able to get weapons out to retaliate, exploiting the only Achilles' heel of the IRGC. Since the IRGC realized that its strength can also be turned into a tactical weakness, it activated its military proxies in the region. So, differently from the first round of military confrontation, Iran will likely pursue asymmetric warfare via proxies if a large-scale attack is successful in impairing its offensive capabilities (again, low chances, but not zero). To conclude, I personally think an attack is coming, also because Trump knows the world is running out of crude oil reserves, and that shortages hitting in the middle of the midterm campaign can give huge leverage to the Dems. If both the House and Senate are flipped, the chances of a successful impeachment of Donald Trump are very high. This is what I believe Iran is pursuing as well, since it has lost any trust in negotiating with Trump and the team, and is looking to engage the next President - who will have a strong incentive to stop any military confrontation and find a peaceful agreement from which Iran will be able to extract big concessions compared to the past.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race: How This Compounder Became a 72 Bagger and Still Has Room to Run

noreply@slice-app.io (Mauricio Heck) — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 23:39:02 GMT

Note to readers: This company feature reflects the research we conduct at , an independent boutique investment manager focused on identifying wealth-creating smaller companies. Today, we examine BioSyent, a Canadian specialty pharmaceutical company whose expansion into oral health and endocrinology has opened several new avenues for growth. This is NOT investment advice, please read the disclaimer at the end. RX-TSXV, $14.50 - $167 million Market Cap BioSyent is a Canadian specialty pharmaceutical company that sources, in-licenses and commercializes niche healthcare products, and which recently diversified into oral health through the acquisition of Oral Science. Company Overview BioSyent does not discover drugs. It licenses them, which means the business carries no research risk and no patent cliff, and turns almost entirely on commercial execution. Through its BioSyent Pharma subsidiary, the company identifies underserved therapeutic niches, in-licenses or acquires products with genuine clinical differentiation, and commercializes them through a small, focused Canadian sales force. The formula has now produced 63 consecutive profitable quarters. The business has historically rested on a single pillar. FeraMAX has been Canada’s leading recommended iron supplement for the eleventh consecutive year, and until recently it accounted for roughly 70% of revenue. That concentration has changed materially over the past 18 months. BioSyent has launched Thyconvi, a new liquid endocrinology product, and in March 2026 closed its largest acquisition to date, paying $25.5 million for Oral Science, a Canadian dental hygiene distributor. FeraMAX now represents closer to 40% of revenue. This is a more diversified and more resilient business than it was even two years ago. History BioSyent traces its roots to Hedley Technologies, a legacy biological insecticide business that still contributes modest and lumpy revenue today. The company renamed itself BioSyent in 2006 to reflect its pivot toward pharmaceuticals, and has since built a business focused largely on women’s health, selling into pharmacies, hospitals and specialists, primarily in Canada. In September 2024, BioSyent paid roughly $4.4 million for global distribution rights to Tibella and Tibelia (tibolone), a hormone replacement therapy already growing at more than 30% annually in Canada. Three months earlier, it had signed a licence agreement for a European-partnered endocrinology asset at an upfront fee of just EUR 50,000. That asset has since become Thyconvi. Management has described it as one of the company’s most asymmetric bets, with negligible capital at risk against a product addressing hypothyroidism, one of Canada’s largest chronic prescription categories. With Oral Science acquired in March 2026 and Health Canada approval of Thyconvi granted in May 2026, the company has added oral care and endocrinology as genuine new avenues for growth. What They Do Pharmaceutical sales, Canadian and international. FeraMAX remains the core, alongside Tibella in Canadian hormone replacement therapy and Tibelia in international distribution, plus a handful of smaller specialty and community health brands. This segment generated $40.9 million of sales in 2025, or 95% of the total. Oral health. Oral Science distributes dental hygiene products into more than 6,000 Canadian dental clinics, close to 40% of the clinics in the country, as well as through retail pharmacy and direct-to-consumer channels. Roughly a third of its revenue comes from proprietary products and the balance from exclusive distribution agreements with international partners. Oral Science generated approximately $31.2 million of revenue in 2025 and has compounded at 15% historically. Thyconvi. A newly launched oral liquid formulation of levothyroxine, the standard treatment for hypothyroidism. Levothyroxine tablets have been available generically for decades, but no liquid alternative has existed in Canada. That is a real gap for patients with swallowing difficulties, for paediatric patients, and for anyone whose absorption issues make consistent tablet dosing unreliable. Legacy business. A small, non-core insecticide operation that we treat as a residual cash flow stream. Investment Case Oral Science is a bigger near-term catalyst than the market has recognized This may be the most underappreciated part of the current setup. Reported results to date include only a single month of Oral Science, namely $2.98 million of revenue in March 2026. Investors have not yet seen a full quarter inside BioSyent’s numbers, let alone a full year. Management has guided to roughly $30 million of Oral Science revenue over the ten months of 2026 ownership, and our base case assumes 10% to 12% organic growth over the next several years. That growth should come from continued penetration of categories such as air polishers, which remain early in their adoption curve in Canadian clinics, alongside a broader push into dental service organizations. BioSyent paid 6.3 times trailing twelve-month EBITDA, and less than five times after adjusting for working capital, a highly accretive multiple for a quality business growing at double digits. Thyconvi is conservatively underwritten Thyconvi has cleared Health Canada and moved into commercial launch, and BioSyent is now filing for private insurance reimbursement on a wide-open label. Notably, management’s base business case assumes no contribution at all from provincial reimbursement, on the view that the discount required to win formulary listing would be too steep to be economically attractive. The plan is built entirely around the private-pay opportunity. Management has guided to a $10 million peak-year sales target and cautions that reaching it could take more than five years. Our own work, cross-referencing IQVIA prescribing data against international liquid levothyroxine analogues, points to a wider plausible range of $5 million to $20 million. The core target populations are underserved today: patients with swallowing difficulties, who represent roughly 2.5% of the population and a larger group than most investors would guess, patients with fluctuating thyroid-stimulating hormone, and paediatric patients. We do not believe the market is giving BioSyent any credit for what Thyconvi can contribute over the next three to five years. Capital allocation is disciplined and shareholder-friendly BioSyent continues to raise its dividend and repurchase stock even while absorbing the Oral Science acquisition. With the balance sheet already building cash after the deal, management has signalled an acquisition opportunity set that now spans oral health and additional endocrinology assets alongside the traditional pharmaceutical base. The track record supports the confidence. Over the past 14 years, revenue has compounded at 19.6%, net income after tax at 15.9% and earnings per share at 17.7%, all while the share count has fallen by 20%. Operating margins remain strong and return on invested capital is impressive. President and Chief Executive Officer René Goehrum owns roughly 20% of the shares. We think that alignment is a large part of why capital allocation has been this disciplined. Optionality PerioMonitor. Oral Science has developed a chairside gingivitis diagnostic that delivers results in minutes at a fraction of the cost of the lab-based swab-and-send alternative. The product has already secured approval in the United States, and management has confirmed it is actively seeking to out-license the product for markets outside Canada. The potential is genuinely hard to size today, which is precisely why Oral Science structured the sale to BioSyent to include a royalty on it. We understand the royalty is capped, and that margins remain very strong even after royalty payments. We would not be surprised to see a global out-licensing deal announced with a multinational partner within the next twelve months. Thyconvi beyond the base case. Because the business case assumes no public reimbursement, any provincial formulary access is pure upside. So is any outcome toward the higher end of our $5 million to $20 million range. Further acquisitions. Balance sheet capacity and management’s stated interest across both oral health and endocrinology make another acquisition plausible over our investment horizon, though we do not build one into our base case. FeraMAX pipeline. Additional line extensions remain in development, including what we believe is an iron combination product, a natural extension of the existing women’s health franchise. Risks Accrufer competition. Accrufer (ferric maltol), launched by Kye Pharmaceuticals in early 2025, is the first and only prescription oral iron product in Canada. Prescription status is a structural advantage over FeraMAX’s classification as a natural health product, because it opens the door to provincial formulary and drug plan coverage that FeraMAX cannot access. Accrufer is off to a strong start and has built a real commercial base — enough to matter against a franchise the size of FeraMAX, though still a small fraction of it. FeraMAX continued to grow through 2025, and the evidence to date suggests Accrufer is drawing new patients rather than switchers. The overall iron market is expanding. Even so, this remains the single largest watch-point for our thesis. Thyconvi execution. Reimbursement filings, physician adoption curves and peak sales timing are all unproven. Our $5 million to $20 million range is wide for a reason. Oral Science integration and distribution dependency. This is a newly acquired business with its own key-person considerations around founder Daniel Ménard, and with distribution partner concentration. That includes its relationship with Curaden, which is working through a leadership transition following the death of its founder in mid-2025. Liquidity and information asymmetry. BioSyent has coverage from a single sell-side analyst and thin average daily dollar volume. This cuts both ways. It is part of why we believe the opportunity exists at all, but it also means the shares can move sharply on light news flow, and that building or exiting a position of size requires patience. Valuation BioSyent trades at roughly 8.5 times our 2027 estimated EV/EBITDA, which we find attractive. Our base case has earnings per share compounding at 18% from 2025 to 2028 and adjusted EBITDA at 24% over the same period, with most of the increase coming from the addition of Oral Science. Those figures rest on mid-single-digit growth in pharmaceutical sales, a modest contribution from Thyconvi in 2027 and 2028, and 12% growth in oral health. This requires strong execution, but it does not require anything exceptional. If the company delivers, we believe the business should be valued at 10 to 12 times EV/EBITDA. The chart below shows how we think about the asymmetry. Our base case produces a fair value range of $22 to $30 per share depending on the growth rate and the multiple applied. The range is wide because it looks out three years, but the asymmetry is compelling given our view of the limited downside. Outsized success with Thyconvi, PerioMonitor or a further acquisition could push the outcome beyond the top end. Final Thoughts BioSyent is an owner-operator small cap with a strong record of capital allocation and operational execution. The market was not paying much attention to it while the story depended so heavily on FeraMAX, and we were in that camp for some time despite having the company on our watchlist. What the market is missing now is that this is no longer a one-trick pony. It has diversified, and the drivers of growth and the sources of optionality have both expanded. The investment case will not play out in the short term. That is fine by us. We are content to be aligned with a management team that has meaningful skin in the game and a long record of creating value. An investor who bought BioSyent when René Goehrum took the helm in 1999 at roughly $0.20 per share would have made more than 72 times their money. We believe a new era is beginning. This management team now has more ways to win across a larger portfolio. Oral Science is the company’s largest acquisition and arrives with a strong growth trajectory. Thyconvi is its highest-potential in-licensed prescription product to date. Neither is appreciated in the market today. Understanding all the moving parts of a larger business takes time, but we expect the results will eventually be hard to ignore. We also like the resilience of the model. Whatever happens with international conflict, the oil price, inflation, consumer credit and trade wars, a business like BioSyent is largely insulated. The success driver here is execution, an area where this management team has a long and profitable track record. Disclaimer This newsletter and any related emails (the “Publication”) are provided for informational and educational purposes only. They do not constitute an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or other financial instrument, nor should they be interpreted as legal, tax, accounting, or investment advice. The Publication is general in nature and has been prepared without regard to the investment objectives, financial situation, or particular needs of any specific person. You should conduct your own independent research and consult with a qualified financial adviser and other professional advisers before making any investment decision. The information contained in the Publication is based on sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy, completeness, or timeliness cannot be guaranteed. All information and opinions are subject to change without notice. Any forward looking statements or projections are inherently uncertain and actual results may differ materially due to various risks and uncertainties. Investing involves significant risks, including the possible loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of, and does not guarantee, future results. The author(s) and related parties may hold or acquire positions in securities, instruments, or issuers discussed and may buy or sell such positions at any time without notice. Neither the author(s) nor any publisher, affiliate, director, officer, employee, or agent accepts any liability for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of the use of, or reliance on, the Publication. Jurisdictional and regulatory notices United Kingdom: This Publication is general editorial content. It is not an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity for the purposes of section 21 of the UK Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. If you choose to engage in any investment activity, you should rely only on the terms of the relevant offer as set out in the issuer’s prospectus and applicable regulatory filings. European Economic Area, North America, Australia, and Asia: Distribution of this Publication may be restricted by local law or regulation. It is not intended for any person in any jurisdiction where such distribution would be contrary to local law or regulation. Recipients are responsible for informing themselves about, and observing, any such restrictions that apply in their jurisdiction. By reading the Publication, you agree that you use it at your own risk and that you are solely responsible for any investment decisions you make. Positions and Conflicts of Interest This article was co-written with Robert Gignac and was originally prepared as a Forterra Investment Management company feature; the “we” throughout refers to Forterra. It is republished here with Forterra’s permission. As of July 31, 2026, Forterra holds shares of BioSyent Inc. (TSXV: RX) in the accounts it manages. Both authors hold shares of BioSyent in their personal accounts. Neither author nor Forterra has been compensated by BioSyent, Oral Science, or any affiliate in connection with this article, and neither has any commercial or advisory relationship with the company. Neither author nor Forterra will transact in BioSyent shares for ten business days following publication. Thereafter each may buy or sell at any time, without notice and without updating this article. Readers should assume any position described here is subject to change. BioSyent is a TSXV microcap. It trades a median of roughly 5,000 shares a day, and some sessions barely trade at all. A guest post by Robert Gignac Insights on small cap investing, markets and commentaries from Robert at Forterra Investment Management.

YWR: Killer Charts

noreply@slice-app.io (erikywr) — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 05:58:25 GMT

This month’s YWR chart pack confirms our bullish strategy. But also reminds us of a challenge we are going to have to navigate in the near future. We will discuss that at the end. The chart pack is 54 slides covering: S&P 500 Earnings Estimates BofA Survey University of Michigan Consumer Survey 10 year bond yields A link to the full deck is at the bottom of the post. I want to especially highlight the charts I included from the University of Michigan consumer survey because I found them shocking. Maybe consumers are just better at complaining these days, but the results are at historic lows despite full employment and a booming stock market. I found it surprising how extreme all the charts are right now. It could be a big deal. So get yourself a coffee and go over all the slides, but here are 8 highlights then slide 9 and my final takeaway. #1 We hit $400/share for the S&P 500 2027 EPS Estimate. This is a key milestone for our S&P $10,000 target ( S&P $10,000 Update ). Estimates revisions remain positive. #2 The market is no longer a Mag7 story. The ‘Other 493’ are growing earnings 25%. #3 S&P 500 EPS estimates for 2027 are 17% growth with the energy sector negative. Expectations around energy look to bearish to me. #4 Investors are piling into Tech and out of Energy. Record inflows into tech funds and record outflows from energy as we go into a global energy crisis. Kind of amazing. #5 Fund managers are sanguine about inflation and rate hikes. CPI hits 4.2% and everyone is convinced it’s a 1-off and the Fed doesn’t need to do anything. According to the BofA fund manager survey 83% of fund managers expect no rate hikes before the midterm elections. #6 Consumers have never felt worse. The market is making new highs, the economy is booming and unemployment is low, but the University of Michigan consumer survey readings are off the charts negative. Like lowest ever. Within the readings there is an unprecedented polarisation in sentiment by political party. #7 Consumers are in pain over rising prices. Inflation is only 4% but consumers are in extreme pain. #8 Consumers are miserable and expect things to get worse. The future expectations reading is making an all time record low, even lower than the financial crisis. Consumers are more negative about their future than they have ever been. This is profound. There is a rising concern about future unemployment. So what story do I see playing out here? What is the challenge we need to face? Here is the other most important chart from the University of Michigan Survey. Chart 9...

WELCOME TO THE NEW ERA OF STATE-CONTROLLED CRUDE OIL PRICES

noreply@slice-app.io (Dario Capodici) — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:17:38 GMT

Dear subscribers, as you’ve noticed, over the past 72 hours I’ve slept very little while monitoring the crude oil market. I don’t think I’ve ever pushed my brain this hard on a single issue. Fundamentally, the crude oil crisis is worsening; there’s no doubt about that. The same is true of the war in the Middle East, which is expanding and intensifying. So is the manipulation of crude oil prices. And when the administration in charge is going to sell Wall Street instant access to President Trump posts legalizing insider trading, rational short-term trading in the oil market becomes pointless: prices will move only when the apparatus controlling them decides to move them, as happened on Monday. For this reason, I believe the crude oil price chart will start to resemble the Fed Funds rate chart - a staircase of moves up or down. Consider what happened over the past 10 days: the war already resumed last week, when Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz fully shut and the U.S. began retaliatory attacks. Yet the public/private partnership controlling crude oil prices allowed the price to move only when the resumption of the war became “official” on Monday, as the U.S. administration announced its intention to take full control of the Strait of Hormuz and abandon any effort to find a diplomatic solution. If the market were free, efficient, and forward-looking, crude oil would already be back above at least 120$. But when the grip on trading is extremely tight, and data and information are also heavily manipulated and filtered to support that effort and manufacture a narrative, short-term trading becomes a prediction market on the decisions of those who set the outcome. For examples, please see my review of this week’s EIA report here ( https://app.slice-app.io/posts/b09cb98b-32fb-423e-b269-48ffec24483d ), or consider the attacks on the Basra oil terminal in Iraq, which occurred on Wednesday and were repeated on Thursday, yet the information was withheld from markets until the threat subsided ( https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/crude-oil-loading-suspended-all-iraqi-terminals-after-drone-incident-sources-say-2026-07-16/ ). On Thursday, the Houthis stated they would shut the Bab-El-Mandeb Strait if Iranian infrastructure were attacked. A few hours later, the U.S. destroyed a strategic bridge near Bandar Abbas. The market reaction? ZERO. Yes, the price started to move when the Houthi threat began spreading on social and mainstream media ahead of the U.S. market open, but everyone saw what happened: the price was crushed all the way down to 79.60$, exactly the previous day’s settlement price. Likely this coming weekend, the U.S. administration will announce an expansion of the military campaign beyond the Strait of Hormuz. But I expect them to be very careful not to hit any oil infrastructure, so as not to trigger Iranian retaliation against neighboring countries’ oil infrastructure. Iran has made it clear it is not at war with its Arab brothers; for the time being, this means asymmetric war is off the table, and any retaliation will be equal to the attack received. Not surprisingly, Iran hit the bridge connecting Bahrain with Saudi Arabia - an eye for an eye. Traffic in the Strait of Hormuz is back down to virtually zero, especially for oil and LNG tankers. The current gap between oil supply and demand remains ~10 mbd negative. This means crude oil inventories around the world, both SPR and commercial, will keep declining no matter what, especially for high-sulfur crude oil, a significant share of which came from the Middle East. High-sulfur crude oil is used to make diesel (more on this soon). On Thursday, the EIA published an article ( https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67866 ) explaining what “tank bottoms” are. What a coincidence, right? But no worries: crude oil prices won’t be allowed to rise unless the central apparatus sets a higher ceiling. Hilariously, this is exactly what Japan, a notorious market manipulator, has been doing with the JPY in recent years. They’ve done the same with JGB yields, successfully controlling the whole curve for a long time until market forces finally broke their grip and yields began to skyrocket, especially in long-duration maturities. This is how crude oil prices are going to behave in the future. And if President Trump forces them all the way down to 55$ once he decides the war with Iran is over, even though we know that’s not going to happen for years unless the U.S. hands control of the Strait of Hormuz to Iran, in the long run, market forces do ultimately prevail, as happened with the JPY, gold, and silver, all of which broke decades of heavy market manipulation. Why do they prevail? Because if a commodity’s price becomes uneconomical for operators to extract and sell at a fair profit, they will scale back capex and production, exacerbating supply shortages until prices are forced to adjust. That’s essentially what happened to silver. It won’t take 40 years for crude oil, because it is the blood that carries oxygen around the global economy. The market is too busy and obsessed with AI companies to notice that the next major bull run may be in the stocks of crude oil companies that remain obscenely undervalued - especially companies without assets in the Middle East, operations near the Russian-Ukrainian warzone, or with access to high-sulfur oil basins like CNRL, Suncor, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon, and Occidental Petroleum. Another thing the market is ignoring is that there is a part of the oil market the government cannot control as effectively as it would like: diesel. As you can see in the chart here, since the beginning of the war against Iran, the tight correlation between crude oil and diesel prices began to break on the very day the ridiculous MoU with Iran was signed. Another thing the market hasn’t noticed is that the U.S. administration stopped threatening distributors for not lowering prices at the pump. Not all oil is the same, unfortunately. The shortage of high-sulfur oil is now starting to become acute. Even if its wholesale price remains government-controlled, the physical shortage will strain the supply chain and create an inevitable shortage of diesel. That shortage is exacerbated by the successful Ukrainian campaign against Russian refineries, to the point that Russia has already been forced to ban diesel exports, and prices at the pump are skyrocketing in many regions despite Russia being a country rich in crude oil. Inevitably, all diesel (heating oil, jet fuel, and retail diesel) will see its price rise higher and higher in the near future, and I won’t be shocked if this market suddenly breaks and prices skyrocket one day when panic hits. Unfortunately, countries do not have Strategic Diesel Reserves they can use to effectively manipulate their prices as it has been happening with crude oil. For reference, this is the list of refining companies that sell a significant amount of diesel around the globe Marathon Petroleum Corp. – MPC (NYSE) Valero Energy Corp. – VLO (NYSE) Phillips 66 – PSX (NYSE) HF Sinclair – DINO (NYSE) Par Pacific Holdings – PARR (NYSE) Delek US Holdings – DK (NYSE) China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) – 600028 (SSE) / 00386 (HKEX) Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical – 00338 (HKEX) North Huajin Chemical Industries – 000059 (SZSE) Indian Oil Corp. (IOCL) – IOC (NSE) / 530965 (BSE) Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) – HINDPETRO (NSE) / 500104 (BSE) Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) – BPCL (NSE) / 500547 (BSE) Thai Oil – TOP (SET) PTT Global Chemical – PTTGC (SET) S-Oil – 010950 (KRX) Cosmo Energy Holdings – 5021 (TSE) Bangchak Corporation (formerly Bangchak Petroleum) – BCP (SET) Galp Energia – GALP (Euronext Lisbon) BP p.l.c. – BP (NYSE/LSE) Equinor – EQNR (OSE/NYSE) Crude oil is no longer trading like a free, forward-looking market - it’s increasingly trading like a policy variable, adjusted in discrete “steps” when the controlling apparatus decides the narrative and the timing are convenient. Meanwhile, the underlying fundamentals keep tightening: disrupted flows through key chokepoints, persistent inventory drawdowns, and a growing shortage of high‑sulfur barrels. That combination matters because it shifts the real pressure point from headline crude to refined products, especially diesel, where physical constraints are harder to cap with rhetoric or strategic reserves.

YWR: Q2 2026 Performance Review

noreply@slice-app.io (erikywr) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:02:02 GMT

Disclosure: These are not investment recommendations! I always say YWR readers are some of the smartest investors in the world. I see it from the comments at the end of the posts, the chat dialogue, and coffee meet-ups. Now we have some data to prove it. It’s time to review our 1H 2026 performance. Do you remember the ETF portfolio you picked at the end of 2025? It’s +21.1% ytd! Great job! Dirty Div’s is +15.9%. Cash Dragons is sucking (-20%). And my overall ‘buy everything’ portfolio which includes Dirty Dividend, Cash Dragons, NASDAQ, S&P 500, Gold, AI and a few other stocks is +5.6% ytd. Let’s go over each of them. YWR ETF Portfolio Energy (XLE) was +19%. Gold Miners (GDX) -12%. China (FXI) -17%. Brazil (EWZ) +9%. And South Korea (EWY) +108% ytd!! Bam!! Korea roll’n up on all the memory haters! So what do we do for 2H 2026? Do we switch out FXI for KSTR ? I know everyone wants to fade hardware, but it feels super consensus. I’m kind of leaning the other way. I’m not sure. Is the market surprise that ‘Cybertron’ goes on for years, kind or how online vs offline was a 25 year theme? Or, do we keep everything the same? Just to be clear, while the other portfolios are real money, the YWR ETF Portfolio is a hypothetical portfolio constructed from the reader survey we conducted in December 2025. Maybe it should be a real portfolio. Below is the current allocation. Let me know what you think. Dirty Dividends +15.9% ytd. A nice recovery from -2.6% at the end of March. We kept our cool during the Iran war panic. Just reinvested a few year-end dividends and added a new position in Frontline . European banks are the biggest trade nobody talks about. They just carry on growing, buying back shares, and paying out dividends while nobody talks about them. That’s how we like it. 2 million Substack posts/week about AI and none about Unicredit, Santander or Barclays. Let’s keep it that way. If anyone asks about European banks send them another AI podcast to listen to. The performance of European banks means they are now 59% of the portfolio. If I had to say what looks the interesting right now in Dirty Div’s it’s TotalEnergies at 7x earnings. You get a mix of everything; upstream oil and gas, global LNG trading business, LNG terminal investments, a growing electricity generation portfolio and refining all for 7x earnings plus dividends. In the latest Global Factor Model data everything to do with energy screened well. The market is pricing energy, shipping and refining as if the Iran disruptions are over. So the bet would be that they are not. That there a few more chapters to the story. Cash Dragons -20% YTD! Crikey. Earnings at Alibaba have been terrible. Baidu is starting to inflect, but it got dragged down with the rest of the Hong Kong sell-off. Tencent Q1 earnings were better than expected given all the warnings they made about how much they were going to spend on AI, but it didn’t matter, it was sold down too. Basically, Hong Kong has turned into a ‘software’ trade, while the Shanghai Star market is Cybertron (‘hardware’). Nobody wants food delivery, online retail, paid search and video games…. Those are ‘human’ trades. ‘Human trades’ are dead money. Everyone wants robot trades; GPU’s, DRAM, contract manufacturing, optical connectors, LIDAR and batteries. So what do we do? I’m reducing Alibaba and Baidu. Mostly Alibaba, but it’s also for personal reasons. See the personal announcement below. I’ve seen Tencent manage well through problems before (new video game license freezes, changes to fees on payments). ‘AI’ will probably be the same. So I’ll stick with Pony Ma and his team. Earnings at HK Exchange, Ping An, LVS and SGX have been fine so nothing done there. Overall Buy Everything Portfolio My asset allocation can best be described as the ‘buy everything portfolio’. Buy NASDAQ, buy AI, buy gold, buy China, buy banks, buy energy. It’s Project Zimbabwe. We want to be long a diversified portfolio of risk assets. Mostly we just want to be long everything. It’s the 18 wheeler theory. Even if 1 tire blows, we keep on trucking. The Cash Dragons slice dragged down 1H performance so the overall performance was only +5.6% ytd. Public Service Announcement. I want to disclose something because it’s important to know where people have skin in the game and where they are just talking. That’s why we do this review of our actual performance. At the end of the quarter I had to sell some stocks to buy a property. It meant going over all of my accounts and doing an upside/downside analysis of how to raise money while minimising capital gains taxes. I sold completely out of Mercedes Benz, Tesla, Amgen, Vinci and Alibaba. I reduced Glencore and Baidu substantially, and sold 15% of SK Hynix. The sales to Alibaba and Baidu reduced a lot the size of the Cash Dragons portfolio. Regards, Erik

Monday Open - Weekly Market Update - June 29

noreply@slice-app.io (CryptoJelleNL) — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 11:56:54 GMT

No major positioning changes in the last week; although the DCA process continues. We added to BTC and S&P exposure, while also increasing ONDO exposure. I was able to scoop a teeny-tiny position in JTO before it started moving again as well, but it's so tiny that I didn't even bother to report it on here just yet - which means it's also nothing to celebrate. If it runs from here, I might just be able to take the wife to dinner once, nothing more. Anyway, we've got some exciting things happening in the market again, so let's have a look at whats going on - and I'll circle back to how I'm reacting to it - if at all. First things first, Michael Saylor is in a bit of a pickle. The mess surrounding STRC is putting pressure on the market that we'd have been better off without. STRC is down 25-30% from before this situation started, and the further it goes down, the more pressure it puts on Strategy to sell BTC. It's nothing Saylor can't get out of (buy back STRC to reduce the dividend obligations, though that itself eats into the cash reserve they're already short on - so might mean selling some BTC), and it doesn't really affect BTC in the long-run, but it's something to keep an eye on nonetheless. We've seen relative strength in Altcoins lately - it wouldn't surprise me if that is partially because STRC is causing BTC to underperform at the moment. All in all, interesting to follow just to know why the market is moving the way it does - but nothing to make me change course. DCA continues, STRC in trouble or not. This STRC situation puts the market on edge, which has BTC slowly bleeding lower. As a result, we just put in a weekly close below $60k, for the first time since 2024 - also closing below the 200w MA for the first time since 2023. All it means to me is that we're getting closer to the bottom, which is exactly why I'm DCA-ing. Will amp up the buys if we get $52k and/or the closer we get to October. Systematically executing the plan, and so far, the price of Bitcoin is playing along nicely. On the daily, I'm seeing buying interest despite the STRC situation. Price keeps showing wicks into $59k, with a daily bullish divergence locked in as well. So while the weekly shows a breakdown - the daily indicates we might actually get some relief soon. All hinges on STRC and what Saylor does next. We can count on him to do something crazy though - so let's just see what we get, and I'll stick to the plan in the meantime. I mentioned relative strength on Altcoins earlier on, so it was a matter of time before we zoomed in on that a little. You guys know about HYPE, ONDO & JTO which I have mentioned before. HYPE is holding well in my opinion, still holding in the same consolidative structure above previous cycle highs. Feels very much like a 'recharge before the next leg higher' type situation. ONDO is a different story, it's weaker, but still holds a good structure on the higher timeframes. I'd have invalidated this one already if it were a trade, but as discussed when I opened this position - it's more of a fundamental bet on RWA doing well in the bull, and that bet hasn't changed. Chart still looks sound on the higher-timeframes as well, so just letting it run and using the discount to accumulate some more here and there, including a small buy today. Then there's JTO, the coin I was able to buy just very little of before it started moving. Just about 20% of what I like to have as a small altcoin position. Nothing noteworthy, but it's ran 15% from my entry already - so just letting it run and seeing if I can't get another opportunity to load up some more. Thesis is intact, just a shame I didn't buy more before it started running. It happens, so we just stick to the plan, never chase a bag. The reason why I don't chase is simple, there will always be another opportunity. One of those opportunities could be coming soon in the form of EIGEN. I attached the chart, looks like an accumulation structure that just broke out & now retests it. Price currently sits on the 100d EMA, usually a good setup for higher. No position as of yet since I'd rather wait for BTC to decide what's next - but again an interesting project both chart-wise and fundamentally. Monitoring closely over the next weeks. My next steps I'll keep it simple, I'm continuing to DCA. Primarily the weekly BTC & monthly S&P buys - but also trying to DCA some more on ONDO & JTO. Letting HYPE ride until $100 where I plan to take my first profits. Paying close attention to EIGEN, might want to take on a small position there as well. Not much to update in stocks other than that my DCA from last week seems nicely timed, the S&P is bouncing from the 50EMA and looks ready to push higher once more. Not that it matters - the time horizon on this position is years, not weeks. Anyway - that's it from me today. Hope it helps! Cheers

YWR: Friday Money Maker(s)

noreply@slice-app.io (erikywr) — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 15:52:22 GMT

The market may have given us a gift. CME, ICE and CBOE are down 25% from their highs. There two issues. First, is concern the CFTC’s approval of Kalshi’s perpetual future’s contracts might be a competitive threat to these established futures exchanges. The second concern is that with the signing (?) of Iran peace deal the Q1 surge in Iran War volatility was a one-off. Forward P/E’s are back to trough levels for these businesses, which is sub-20x. Traditionally, this is a good entry point. We probably don’t need to go over why these are great stocks to own. They grow in line with capital markets activity, have virtual monopolies in their products, high operating margins and minimal capex. Perpetual Futures Threat The fear with Kalshi’s new Crypto perpetual futures is whether these monopolies are under threat. It’s crypto today, but tomorrow it could be commodities and the S&P 500. First let’s understand the real moats around these derivatives exchanges, because they aren’t really monopolies, they just naturally evolve this way. #1 Liquidity network effects. This is the most obvious. Liquidity begets liqudity. It would be hard for a new exchange to compete with the CME’s flagship S&P 500 contract, ICE’s Brent contract or CBOE’s S&P options contract. Although you can see how CME might try to compete with CBOE and why ICE has a competing WTI contract. But it’s really hard for a new entrant to get started. #2 Collateral efficiency. A diversified derivatives exchange can reduce a client’s margin requirements by considering offsetting contract positions (long June - short September) as well as highly correlated contracts (long Brent - short WTI) when calculating collateral. This is a strategic benefit for a one-stop shop like CME (interest rates, equities, commodities, FX). This is also why traders might want to trade WTI on ICE for the margin benefits even if CME is more liquid. #3 Back office clearing and settlement relationships. CME, ICE and CBOE own their own clearing houses and this is the key market structure. It’s hard to set up back office settlement relationships with all the major banks, brokers, asset managers and hedge funds. Everyone is already ’set up’ with ICE, CME and CBOE. There would be huge inertia to setting up a new derivatives exchange and getting all the market participants connected. This is different from cash equities settlement which is why cash equities isn’t very profitable for exchanges. For US cash equities settlement is through the DTCC a public settlement system everyone is connected to. Effectively, anyone can create a cash equities exchange. The settlement is a public good through the DTCC. Which is why exchanges make ‘billions’ trading futures and ‘hundreds of millions’ trading cash equities. Rule of thumb: He who owns the clearing house makes the money. It’s why SGX and HKEX can make a lot of money in cash equities. Perpetuals vs Futures A traditional futures contract is tied to the underlying spot market through periodic delivery. Usually, quarterly. The requirement for future delivery means spot and futures market are highly connected through arbitrage. Perpetuals are a crypto market invention where the contract is never delivered and has no connection to the underlying spot market. Instead there is a ‘funding rate’ which is meant to keep the perpetual tied to spot. If the price of BTC on a perpetual has pushed up to $70,000 because everyone is super bullish BTC and wants to be long with 20x leverage, while the spot is $60,000, there would be a 16% funding cost which gets paid to holders of the short BTC contracts. Effectively, compensating them for the contract deviating away from spot. The perpetual structure kind of works as a way to trade things on a website without having settlement. But it’s like Automated Market Making, another crypto invention. It works (kind of), but it’s shaky and it’s not the same as being connected to the actual liquid underlying market. Pushback on Perpetuals #1 Retail product: It’s hard to see perpetuals as something institutions are going to use. American Airlines, Vitol, and Morgan Stanley want to trade energy contracts with deliverability of the underlying commodity. Real commercial traders who touch both the spot and futures market are the core to a contract’s liquidity. The pure play speculators are layered on top and chase after real world liquidity. I’m trying to keep an open mind of how the market might develop, but perpetuals are probably going to remain a fringe retail product for traders who want extreme leverage (>5x). #2 Regulatory Review: CME is pushing back heavily on this CFTC’s decision to allow onshore regulated trading of perpetuals. On June 18th they sued the CFTC that perpetuals do not meet the Commodities Trading Act definition of a future contract, which clearly states the contract has to have a delivery date. If perpetuals have no delivery then they are ‘swaps’, which are regulated differently. The CFTC has responded that they will open up the matter to a wider industry consultation, which is what the CME wanted. CME Executive Chairman Terry Duffy gave a great 25 min fireside chat on this topic (as well as his positive outlook on CME’s growth). I recommend giving it a listen. My guess is the futures industry is going to drag Kalshi through the regulatory mud and make it really hard to offer a regulated perpetual futures contract. And in the end if they do get it approved, the existing exchanges CME and ICE are well positioned to counter with products of their own if they want to. Interestingly, Duffy thinks perpetuals futures are insane and the current retail speculative trading fever is the equivalent of subprime mortgages in 2007. Why derivative exchanges are good Project Zimbabwe plays The fear over perpetuals contracts provides us an entry point to businesses which are aligned with our Project Zimbabwe outlook. Earnings have been surging for the exchanges recently, and here is why it is likely to continue. #1 Rise of retail speculation. The lesson from all inflationary periods is that trading and speculation increase as nominal assets rise and everyone flees cash. Duffy worries this is a short term cyclical trend. Project Zimbabwe says this is going to go a lot further. Project Zimbabwe is why hyper volatile short dated options grew gone from 22% of CBOE volume in 2022 to 60% in 2025. CME is also seeing a surge in retail trading. #2 Rise in interest rate volatility. The biggest complex at CME is interest rates and it’s becoming a big product for ICE too. Interest rate contract volumes are growing rapidly which seems to be tied to our new environment where rates are higher and no-one knows if interest rates are going higher or lower from here. For the exchanges this uncertainty is great. #3 Growth of US Energy Exports The US is becoming the trusted, reliable supplier of world energy, especially for gas and LNG. Counterparties around the world will need to hedge their US supply with US energy futures contracts. #4 Geopolitical uncertainty. Covid, Ukraine War, Tariffs, Iran War.. .what next? The world is increasingly uncertain and volatile. Which is great for hedging volumes in interest rates, metals, energy and equities. Risks and Timing I could be wrong, and this isn’t the best entry point for the derivatives exchanges, but I think with a long enough time frame these are good businesses to own. The other challenge is that it is hard to predict quarterly volumes. They can surge and then flatline, and it’s frustrating to wait around when things are quiet not knowing when the next volatility surge will hit. You just have to know you own great businesses and also track all the initiatives they have to launch new products and data sets. Below are my earnings models for CME and ICE. Have a good weekend! I’m going to go watch the HSBC Championship Cup tennis. Erik...

Monday Open - Weekly Market Update - June 2

noreply@slice-app.io (CryptoJelleNL) — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 09:10:22 GMT

A day late this week, had an all-day event at the golf course with OKX - celebrating the retirement of Pep Guardiola. Not what I expected to be doing when I first got into crypto, but I'll take it! :) It'll be a lighter update than usual as well, given that I'm writing this on my phone, at the airport. We're launching this Slice page tomorrow - expect the coming updates to have more meat around the bone once again. Big news yesterday, Michael Saylor has sold 32 Bitcoin! It's been a long-time coming, but the market still reacted quite sharply to the news after it hit, pushing prices down 3%. I usually don't really care much about news events like this, but given how big of a holder MSTR is, it's noteworthy. The way forward from here (more selling, or it turning out to be a one-time thing) will likely play an important role in the remainder of the bear market. The chart itself remains mostly unchanged. I say unchanged, in the sense that it is going as planned. Bitcoin is moving lower, after getting rejected from the 200d EMA, as discussed in the previous updates. In other news, the monthly candle closed this past weekend, and it's not looking too hot. Clear rejection from the previous lows, which would usually indicate an intent to move lower. On the daily timeframe, bulls are running out of time to save the chart. Price sits at key support, and if we lose it - we fall back into the previous range, which generally means we'll revisit those range lows. All in all, Bitcoin looks like it's just about ready for the usual summer behaviour: boring chop / bleeding. It doesn't necessarily have to go a lot lower - but I don't think there'll be much benefit in being bullish BTC over the next weeks. At the same time though, I keep a close eye on the long-term plan. While many people get sad when they see red candles, I get excited - as it means cheaper entries. And this time, it looks like the thing I've been waiting for for over a year; might start playing out soon. It obviously remains to be seen, but if BTC's weekly RSI is able to form a higher low over the summer - it'll give me high confidence that the bottom will be either in, or at least - close enough for me to start buying again. In other words, it's time for me to start paying closer attention, as opportunity could be coming soon. Altcoins are still being very nice to me though. INJ & HYPE have both been moving higher. Both have plenty of room to run higher, so I leave them open. HYPE is getting riskier though, with the SpaceX IPO approaching. Could see a pullback in the coming days - but this is a spot position for me, so even if that happens, it's all good. Expecting it to keep doing well over the summer. That's all for me today. Will likely put out some more updates later this week, after I get back into the office and in front of a proper screen. See you tomorrow for the official launch of this page!

The Nairobi Solution: Ch.9

noreply@slice-app.io (erikywr) — Sun, 31 May 2026 06:02:23 GMT

Erik stared again at the email from Dwight. “Give me a call when you can. I need you to come to London.” He reread the words searching for extra layers of meaning. Why did Dwight need him to come to London? Was it to fire him? But then why say to give him a call when ‘you can’? It didn’t seem like the right language to use when you need to speak to someone so you can fire them. But you could never tell with Dwight. It had been 3 weeks since the trip to Emali, the bad news from Niko and the phone calls to Dwight and Claire. He hadn’t wanted to speak to any of them since. He’d stayed in his office, depressed, and focused on bank paperwork. Now here was Dwight telling him to come back to London. He picked up his mobile and filled with gloom and dread called Dwight. As he clicked dial Erik made a final mental effort to try to sound upbeat. “Hi Dwight. It’s Erik. I got your email. What’s up?” “Hey Erik! Yes. I need you to come to London. When do you think you can make it over?” Dwight sounded strangely friendly. Like a completely different person from the last conversation. “If you need me there quickly, I can take the BA flight on Wednesday night.” “Yes. Do that.” Erik took a big risk next, but Dwight seemed in a good mood and he wanted to know. “May I ask what’s up in London? Is there something you want me to help with?” “No. There’s someone I want you to meet. You know Opus? They want to make a bid for Turkana.” “Opus Partners wants to buy Turkana? That’s great news!” “Yeah. The price isn’t amazing, but we make a small profit, and the best part is it gets us out of this mess so we can focus on something else. Anyways, they want to meet with you. Part of the due diligence.” “Tell them anytime Thursday afternoon. I’ll get in that morning, take a quick shower then go to Mayfair.” “Great. You’re going to meet with Dipak who is a partner and leading the deal. Keep a look out for an email they are going to send through. There’s a whole bunch of documents they want to go over and discuss in the meeting. Thanks. See you soon.” What amazing news. What a complete turn of events. Opus Partners was a smaller EM focused private equity fund also based in London. There was a bit of a stink around Opus, but they knew emerging markets and would be comfortable owning an asset in Kenya. Their CEO had been investigated several times by the FCA for questionable transactions but had never been formally charged with anything. Opus wasn’t the buyer Erik would have wished for Turkana, and the team here in Nairobi, but maybe it didn’t matter as long as Belway got paid and could exit. Likely Opus were getting a good deal from Dwight (0.8x book Erik guessed) with the plan to work through the East Africa Rail situation then get an even higher price down the road. 1.5x or maybe 2x if EM markets were hot. All in 2-3 years. It made sense. Erik was excited as he booked his BA ticket to Heathrow. Nicole would be happy too. He was going home. Later that week Erik emerged from Green Park tube station into the grey skies and rain of London. This was the complete opposite of Nairobi Erik thought. He had a short walk to Berkeley Square where Opus had their offices. Erik ran the bell at what had long ago been a nice private residence on the square but was now the posh offices for a private equity fund. A receptionist took his wet coat, hung it in the closet and escorted him to a conference room where Dipak and the rest of the Opus team were waiting for him. Two hours later Erik stepped back into the rain again to give Dwight an update. “How did it go?” Dwight asked. “Good. I guess. They went over all the information we sent them. The financials, the regulatory updates, the internal risk reports, the auditor statements. They asked a lot about the East Africa Rail deal. They kept asking if everything had been disclosed. They also asked me to initial some of the disclosure documents we sent over. They said it was to prove they were verified by Turkana management.” “That’s normal deal due diligence. They’re just being thorough.” “Yes, I know. I guess. I was just surprised they didn’t ask anything about the economy, the new government, or the growth strategy of the bank, or anything. It was just all dotting I’s and crossing the T’s about the documents we sent them. Just wasn’t what I expected.” “Sounds fine. They’ll probably ask you all that stuff in a later meeting. In the meantime, please stay in London until we get this closed. They told me they are willing to focus 100% on this and move quickly. So maybe work from the office here so you can give Opus your full attention and get this over the line.” “Sure Dwight. Let’s get it done.” For the next week Erik worked out of the Belway office near Liverpool Street. Mostly he was responding to information requests about Turkana from Dipak. The deal seemed to be moving along. It was also nice to be able to go home and for walks and dinners with Nicole. Then on Thursday Dipak sent Erik the following email: Subject: Updated SPA and Disclosure Schedule – Insurer Comments Hi Erik, Please find attached the latest mark-up of the Share Purchase Agreement and related Disclosure Schedules. Nothing substantive — mostly definitional tightening and clarification following feedback from our advisors and insurer. We’ve expanded certain knowledge qualifiers and refined the East Africa Rail disclosure to ensure completeness. Would be grateful if you could review and confirm the updated language, in particular: · Clause 7.4 (Material Contracts – East Africa Rail) · Definition of “Knowledge” · Bring-down confirmation language for Closing If possible, we’d appreciate your initials on the revised Disclosure Schedule (attached separately) confirming management verification. Happy to discuss if helpful. Best, Dipak Opus Partners What was all this about “We’ve expanded certain knowledge qualifiers and refined the East Africa Rail disclosure to ensure completeness,” Erik thought feeling slightly uneasy. And what was a “Definition of ‘Knowledge’? And why are they referring to an insurer? He was about to get up and ask Dwight, who was over at his terminal staring at stock prices, but something stopped him. He wanted to know more first. He wanted to run this by Harry. When most people think of London as a financial capital they think of the investment banks in Canary Wharf, the stock exchange and the fund managers in Mayfair, but underappreciated is that London is also the world’s largest insurance market. Erik couldn’t remember exactly what types of insurance Harry worked on, but it was specialty insurance for a Lloyds syndicate. Later that week Erik and Harry were seated in a pub in Leadenhall Market where the everyone in the insurance market liked to meet and drink beer. Harry had a printout of Dipak’s email in front of him. “So. What do you think?” Erik asked. “Run me through again what you sent them and what they asked in the meeting.” Erik went over the events from the previous week. “Hmm..” “And they asked you to initial some disclosure documents while you were in their offices?” “Yes. I realise I probably should have got legal advice first, but it seemed OK. They were the documents we sent then. It seemed to make sense.” “And they didn’t ask you much about the business, or anything else?” “No. That was what struck me as strange. Then this email seemed like more of the same. And then the mention of the insurance company going over all the documents. It made me want to run it by you. Dwight thinks this is all standard procedure.” “And off the record as your friend. Is there anything material you probably should be disclosing?” “Well… totally between you and me. There is a potential delay involving one of the major suppliers to the rail deal. But it’s not anything official stated, just a ‘likely delay’. Just a verbal phone conversation I had. Nothing’s written down and there is no way they could know it. So I left it out. And Dwight would definitely would want it out because it would kill the deal.” “Hmm…..” Harry was thinking and kept looking at the printout of Dipak’s email. Finally, he looked up. “Erik.. I think given what you are saying that behind the scenes there is actually a delay to the East Africa Rail project (which they are asking a lot about), and now this email from Dipak asking exactly about it in highly specific language, I think you should consider the possibility Opus knows about the delay. Everything they are asking and doing (the extra schedules, the change in the language, getting you to initial the documents) double checking with the insurance company, could be to make sure their claim is 100% watertight if/when they need to file a Representations and Warranty claim that you never disclosed the delay.” “And if they found something they would get a payout,” Erik mused. “Like your Dwight guy said it could all be normal, but the fact you said they have been only focused on this and not asking about the rest of the business is suspicious. Erik, I would highly recommend getting private legal counsel before signing anything else from these guys.” Thanks a lot Harry for reviewing this. You are confirming what I suspected. Thank you again. Erik got up, left the pub and headed in the direction of the Thames for what would be a long walk. He needed to think. First things first. Accept brutal truth number #1. Somehow Opus knows about the EcoRail delay and is setting up all the legal language to prove it was never disclosed to them and file a Representations and Warranties claim. Which fit exactly with the Opus reputation and now made sense. But how did Opus find out about the EcoRail delay? It could only have come from Dwight or Claire. Or, possibly from Niko. Did Opus know Niko somehow? And why would Niko tell that to Opus? Was there some relationship between Dwight, Niko and Opus he didn’t know about? He didn’t think so. That wasn’t it. And Claire? Some backdoor job offer to come back to London and do private equity? No way too convoluted. It wasn’t Claire. Brutal truth number #2 was that Opus had to have learned about the EcoRail delay from Dwight. But why would Dwight tell them that? Erik kept walking and thinking. He crossed London Bridge over the Thames to the South Bank and started walking back up towards Westminster Bridge. An upsetting possibility was taking shape in his mind. Erik calls Dwight from Mukueni County and tells him about the EcoRail delay. Dwight freaks out. He knows the IFC is going to want to review things and delay the project. Eventually, the EcoRail FX problem would get resolved, the project is completed, and the loan repaid. It would all work out, but in the meantime the regulatory accounting would require the loan to be marked impaired, and the regulator would want more capital in the bank. Which Dwight would not want. Which was why he was furious on the call. Then 3 weeks later all of a sudden Dwight’s happy and has found a buyer for the bank. But how do you sell a bank with a major loan that is about to go bad? There was one explanation which answered everything. And it fit why Dwight wasn’t concerned about any of the extra disclosure requirements Erik was being forced to sign as CEO of Turkana. Because Dwight wasn’t the one who was going to get investigated. What if Dwight had offered Turkana Bank to Opus at a discount with the sweetener that they could file an insurance claim after the deal was closed. Meaning Opus knew about all the problems, and were intending to get both a discounted price for the bank, plus make an insurance claim that they were never informed of the EcoRail delays. It would explain why Opus was the buyer. Opus were exactly the type of firm who would go for a deal like this. Opus would make money on the deal coming and going, and so would Dwight. Meanwhile, Erik’s would be the one who the insurance company would be calling. Dwight would say he was never involved in the operations of the bank and knew nothing. It was all Erik. Erik signed everything. Erik sighed and kept walking. His shoes were getting wet, but he didn’t care. Somehow the rain and the evening lights across the Thames were calming. An idea started to come to him. A potential way out of this trap. He pulled his phone from his pocket and called Nicole. “Hi Nic. I’m sorry I’m late. I went for a walk. Needed to clear my head. I should be home soon. But I’m going to need to head back to Nairobi tomorrow.” “I know. It’s sudden. I have to meet a few people and do something. But the good news is it’s all going to be over soon, and I’ll be back in London for good.” “OK Erik. See you soon, but whatever you have on your mind and plan on doing in Nairobi. Make sure it’s the right thing.” “It is. Don’t worry. Love you.” Dwight was going to have another thing coming.

Monday Open - Weekly Market Update

noreply@slice-app.io (CryptoJelleNL) — Mon, 18 May 2026 08:09:59 GMT

Good morning! It's Monday, which means the weekly closes are in - and we have new information to use to our advantage. I generally start the week with a glance over the daily & weekly charts - to quickly get a feel of where we are. These weekly articles will give you an insight into the things I look at and the things I take away from them. Over the past weeks, bulls have clearly been in control of the market. The stock market pumped at unprecedented speed, and Bitcoin swept its highs multiple times, without ever going down. We saw some signs of that momentum fading (at least, for Bitcoin) last week, and the weekly close we just had adds more weight to that observation. The way I see it, we just rejected from an important area of resistance, locking in a weekly bearish engulfing candle in the process. These candles tend to announce the start of a correction - and I wouldn't be surprised if this candle is another one of those times. We had a period of expansion, now found resistance; and it's time for Bitcoin to find it's next bottom. The pullback came as no surprise, because the daily chart was nice enough to give us fair warning. Earlier this week, we locked in a daily bearish divergence - right at the resistance area - and had the 200d EMA there to act as resistance too. Logical area to get a pullback, and the weekly bearish engulfing we just saw gives me additional confidence that this is indeed where Bitcoin sees a pullback. The million-dollar question then is, where will Bitcoin bottom? There are two ways to look at that question. Many traders and investors (in my opinion, wrongly) try to predict the next bottom) - pulling support levels like the one below, and deciding that is where the next bottom will be. In my experience, it rarely is that simple. It is exactly for that reason that I prefer to let things unfold, and respond to the market as it feeds us more information. That being said, I'll be paying close attention to the gray box in the chart below. I think it'll be a reasonable area for Bitcoin to form a lower-timeframe bullish divergence, which could provide some relief. Doesn't have to be the actual local bottom, but it'll likely provide some trading opportunities, especially if you enjoy trading the lower timeframes. I'm not one of those guys that enjoys trading the lower-timeframes though - I prefer to trade the real moves. You'll probably have seen the below chart on my Twitter feed. It is the most simple way to convey how I aim to add to my Bitcoin exposure. My main thesis going into the bear market is that I would get to accumulate below $60k. So far, I've had no luck - which is fine; markets rarely do exactly what you want them to do, that doesn't mean you cannot make money. Bitcoin has already made a significant push in to oversold territory; which suggests to me that the bottom is close or even already in. We haven't seen many bear market bottoms in Bitcoin's history yet, so data is limited, but every bear market so far has provided a great entry via the weekly RSI forming a higher low. In 2019, that RSI higher low formed with price also making a higher low - but in 2022, Bitcoin pushed lower, while the RSI didn't - forming a HTF bullish divergence. I don't really care which of those two recipes we get from here; all I know is that whenever that RSI forms its next higher low, I want to be a buyer. It can happen in any of the white dots on the chart, only time will tell. As such, I'm paying closer attention to the daily chart. After all, it'll help me spot the next local bottom for BTC faster than I would see it on the weekly chart. Looking for classic signs of a bottom. Slow-sideways price action, bullish divergences, absorption at support - you name it. I'll (hopefully!) know it when I see it. Until then, I remain patient, mostly sitting on my hands. The S&P Absolutely crazy. That's all I can really make of it. I'm enjoying this market a lot, because my portfolio is absolutely ripping higher - but what goes up, eventually has to come down. At least, partially. I don't think trying to time a top on this one is a bright idea. The market can remain irrational for longer than you can stay solvent and all. My strategy for this market is simple; buy some every month, and load up heavily when the market gives a good sell-off. And that's what I'll do. DCA every month, and if we get the inevitable crash, load up the truck - and letting it ride into the sunset. As you can probably tell by now, I try to keep my strategies as simple as possible - not only to understand, but to execute too. This is by design. My experience is that the more trading decisions I have to make, the more likely I am to fuck things up. By reducing my moves to a minumum, at moments where I have the highest confidence, and the lowest likelihood to lose - I have built a strategy that tends to make money in the long run. That last part is important too. I use time to my advantage. Markets go up most of the time. If you wait long enough, the times where they go down, become irrelevant. That's why so many people just hold BTC and ignore the entire bear market. When you own BTC since $3,000 - a pullback from $126,000 to $60,000 might sting a little, but you don't really care knowing that it'll likely trade at $200,000 a couple years from now. CLOSING That's my first weekly update. This'll be a weekly thing - where I share my outlook on the market, and explain why I make the moves I make, or in this case, why I'm not making any moves at all. In between these updates, I'll share any further updates I have as they happen - and inform you of buying/selling transactions - if any. See you around!

All Roads lead to BlackRock

noreply@slice-app.io (erikywr) — Sun, 03 May 2026 07:11:03 GMT

Could BlackRock be on the verge of an earnings acceleration and a move to $1,700/share by 2030? Platform as a Service The NYCERS Insight More Legs to the ETF Story YWR EPS Estimates and Earnings Model Risks Platform as a Service The thing about great entrepreneurs like Larry Fink, and why you want to invest in them, is they never stop thinking about the next thing. They are always moving the goal posts. So while the rest of the asset manager community is finally getting around to launching their own ETF’s, Larry is turning BlackRock into a platform which they call 1BLK. BlackRock is integrating their technology tools like Aladdin and eFront into all levels of their client’s investment process. This means BlackRock technology will help you build your ideal portfolio and then also provide the lego blocks you need to implement it. Across all asset classes. And I think it could be under appreciated the market share gains BlackRock will make across these other asset classes. The NYCERS Insight The NYC Employee Retirement System manages $319 billion and like all public pension funds provides useful insights into exactly where all their money is allocated. They even have a public dashboard you can access. And when you analyse the fund allocations by asset class you come across an interesting insight. In US public equity, BlackRock funds have 68% market share of the 82$ billion. When you include the international allocation BlackRock has 42% market share. Think about that. NYCERS has $138bn invested in public equities and they given 48% of it to one company. And why not? Does it matter which index fund you own? It’s a game of scale and cost. So they gave it all to BlackRock. Probably for less than 10bps. Then look at the rest of the buckets. In Fixed Income Black Rock is a lot less dominant with only 11% market share. State Street funds are much more dominant in the NYCERS fixed income portfolio. Then in private equity and private real estate Black Rock has 0% market share. In the $28 billion PE allocation it’s lots of KKR funds. But the BlackRock Global Infrastructure fund does have 3% market share in the infrastructure bucket. This is the opportunity BlackRock sees. If they already have strong relationships with big pension funds like NYCERS, already own the public equity allocation, already have their risk management software (Aladdin) wired into the back office, then why can’t they massively increase their share in the other buckets? This is why you see BlackRock making acquisitions in infrastructure and private credit. To them it’s plug and play. They just need to make sure they have good products. Next time the BlackRocks saleswoman visits NYCERS she will wiggle their funds into more buckets. And private equity, infrastructure and private credit are much higher fees than index funds. Which makes me think BlackRock could be on the verge of taking a lot more market share. Apparently, BlackRock thinks so too. The big pension funds are consolidating their allocations around fewer players, and BlackRock is well positioned to be the winner from this trend. More legs to the ETF Story. But the push back might be that the big story behind BlackRock has been ETF’s and isn’t that kind of done? We saw in the BofA private client data that ETF’s are still less than 20% of advisor portfolios. That can grow further, especially with the rise of active ETF’s. Second, Europe and the rest of the world still has a lot to go with ETF’s. There are only $2 trillion in European ETF’s compared with $10 trillion in the US. Finally, there is a lot of room still for the ETF’ication of fixed income. There are only $2.5 trillion in fixed income ETF’s, which is just 2% of the market. Couldn’t it easily be $6 trillion? Could BlackRock trade at $1,700/share by 2030? When you put it all together it doesn’t seem unreasonable that by 2030 BlackRock could be earning close to $1,700/share: Underlying natural growth in AUM from market growth. Growth in allocation to ETF’s both in the US and Europe. I am assuming AUM growth of 11%/year from both market appreciation and inflows. This is in line with BlackRock’s AUM growth CAGR from 2017-2025 (10.5%). Increased market share in fixed income, infrastructure and private equity Slight increase in fees/average AUM as the mix includes more high margin private equity funds. I assume the average fee rises from 15bps to 16bps. The push/pull here is that while private equity fees are higher, fixed income fees will be lower. So I modelled in 1bp of fee expansion. Operating leverage from selling same products on existing global network of funds and offices. The operating margin expands from 35% to 41% by 2030. BlackRock is targeting a 45% operating margin. If BlackRock can earn $85/share in 2030 and trade at 20x the share price could be over $1,700. You would also pick up dividends along the way for a total return of 75%. This is in line with BlackRock’s strategy to get to a market cap of $280 billion by 2030, which would be $1,740/share. Risks: We get a nasty market sell-off along the way and the AUM doesn’t compound at 11%. BlackRock can get hit from both a decline in AUM, plus outflows. The AUM is diversified across asset classes, but equities are still 48% of fees. Another possibility is that equities move to tokenisation instead of ETF’s and BlackRock misses out, although this is unlikely because BlackRock is already leading in tokenised funds. We could get a shift away from ETF’s and indices back to active management. I can see this happening to a small degree, but not much more than that. EPS growth is less than we expect, and the share price P/E derates to 15x. Other no-growth asset managers are trading on P/E’s of 10x. The risk could be that BlackRock grows earnings, but it was all priced in and the share price doesn’t make much headway for years and the dividend yield is only 2%.

February Newsletter

noreply@slice-app.io (russellclark) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:07:00 GMT

A new feature of Slice is to publish articles - so posting my newsletter here. The US dollar line of Brumby Capital returned 7.5% this month. This compares to 0.6% return for MSCI World. The fund is now up 16% for the year. In a continuation of last month, Japanese banks continued to do well, as did gold and other stock picks in the long book - name Harbin Electric which was up another 40% as well as wafer stocks and Iseki. The long book made 6% of the total return. The short book benefited from generalised weakness in private equity and private credit shorts, which was offset by a rally in US treasuries and most other non-private equity shorts. The short book made the rest of the return for the fund. As I am writing about this in the second week of March, I feel it would be remiss not to talk about March performance, and how the fund has reacted to war in Iran. The shock of rising energy prices has been felt much more in Japan, Korea and Europe than it has in the US and China. In some ways this makes sense as China and the US have far more robust energy systems, with the US an exporter of energy, and China having developed both a large renewable energy system, a large coal fired energy system and a large fuel storage system. In practical terms, the oil shock has meant that many of the trades that worked last year and in January and February this year, reversed on themselves. The most surprising move would be gold, which normally does well when war breaks out, is actually down in March so far. As of writing, we have given back around half of February gains. As I have written elsewhere, it is extremely difficult to judge how long the war will continue. From a military perspective, Iranian offensive capacity has been severely reduced, and as we have seen in Ukraine, it is possible to open transportation corridors even under extreme pressure. That is the war could continue and the Strait of Hormuz could be opened potentially. While it was possible to see China willing to support Russia in Ukraine, would this also be true with Iran, especially as it is the biggest importer of energy these days? There also seems to be little sympathy for Iran among neighbours. So there is a chance that it resolves itself quickly. But what if it doesn’t what does that mean? Well the fund has been built around a rising cost of capital, and has done very well since launch. I do not see how war in Iran challenges that assumption. What it does do is shine a spotlight on Japanese and European energy policies. The brutal fact is that the US can act militarily in the Middle East now because it is secure in its own energy supply. Japan needs to buy coal and LNG of which Australia is its largest supplier. Its problem is not that Japan was reliant on the Middle East, but that is exposed to price surges when a supply shock hits - the same issue that Europe faces now that its has lost access to Russian gas pipeline flows. This is not new news. Europe, Japan and Korea have been switching nuclear power plants back on as quickly as they can, while adding renewable power also as quickly as they can. Also structurally, LNG market is becoming more stable, as both Australia and the US become large exporters, which is diversifying supply both geographically and politically. For me, what both Russia in 2022 and Iran today has shown is that the potency of energy as a political weapon is much reduced. There are just too many alternatives now. This is not to say that energy prices will fall tomorrow, but the longer they stay high, due to problems in Iran, the more market share the Middle East will lose. However you cut it, Iran is a loser here one way or another. If oil and energy was how superpowers use to fight with each other, it is now obviously tech that is where the battle is. Both China and the US are racing to develop AI and secure their supply chains. The US controls supply of high end GPUs and China controls the supply of rare earths. And for me, as this is a strategic issue, its hard to see how either side backs off from investing heavily, and probably way beyond current needs. When I think about the possibility of deflation, it seems unlikely to me. Every government would take any slack in labour or capital markets as an opportunity to invest and build more. I see it everyday with the proliferation of government jobs, from working in the police force, the army or manufacturing. Governments have been stashing capital for a rainy day for decades now, which has pushed down the cost of capital. But now those rainy day funds are being tapped to build out armies, data centres and tech stacks. Boom times, but with a rising cost of capital. Japan still seems the best place to benefit, mainly as it has so much surplus capital and labour (in so far wages are low). A global investment boom, which I what I am seeing, implies activity remains good, but offset with more expensive capital. This is doubly bad for private equity as their existing investments suffer from rising cost of capital, and the pool of capital upon which they have drawn shrinks. I suspect many people will say I am too sanguine on the risks of higher energy prices for longer. Perhaps that is true - but the relatively small moves in US and Chinese equity markets seems to imply the two biggest nations in the world are doing fine - and if they are doing fine, then can we really be heading to a hard landing? One big benefit of weakness in March is that it has probably cleaned out positions in equities and currencies. While I tend to think long and hard about how I want to invest, the vast majority of funds tend to be variations of momentum strategies - “I own it because it is going up”. If my analysis is correct, then with positioning cleaned up, and no change to the theme of rising capital costs and competition via AI and tech, the fund should continue to do well. In March, I have made some changes to the fund mainly in the short book - but will talk about that in the next newsletter. I may end up adding to the long book - but I am still thinking about it. One benefit for me is that I can see that the fund is about as volatile as I would like. It is impossible to make money without taking risk - and given the strong performance, I wondered if I should have leveraged up the long and short book. Now we have had a sell off, I can see the true volatility of the the fund which has been within the range I feel comfortable with.