Hard Assets, Harsh Realities
I woke up yesterday morning wondering how high gold can go. The green line is the current cycle vs the last 2 cycles. If feels like every morning I wake up and gold is up another 2%. If it is of the same magnitude of previous cycles we can easily double from here. (@WarrenPies)
But what goes up must eventually come down. By midmorning, gold had plunged 10%, erasing Tuesday's gains and wiping out $2.5T in market cap, a sum larger than the entire crypto ecosystem. That is the inherent danger of parabolic moves: the volatility cuts both ways. (@zerohedge)
A previous instance of extreme volatility was the dying of money during the Weimar Republic… Hopefully, we are not witnessing something similar. (Luke Gromen)
On the theme of metals, this was an excellent interview with a gentleman named Craig Tindale, who was also on MacroVoices last week. His thesis is below:
The global industrial system is currently facing a structural “Return of Matter,” where the West’s reliance on intellectual property and financial services has left it strategically vulnerable to China’s near-monopoly on the “midstream” processing and refining of critical minerals. This “Material Impairment” has created a dangerous “Feedstock Paradox”: while the West controls significant raw geological deposits, it lacks the industrial capacity to convert those resources into the essential components needed for advanced defense, AI, and green energy infrastructure.
Consequently, the West is trapped in a cycle of “strategic self-harm” where domestic engineering is degraded by inferior material substitutes and military readiness is subject to Chinese export controls and intelligence feedback loops. To restore industrial sovereignty, the report argues that the West must move beyond “Just-in-Time” economic models and aggressively rebuild its midstream smelting and chemical separation capabilities to break China’s chokehold on the global supply chain.
Yesterday was one of the worst days in Microsoft’s stock history. They actually beat both top and bottom line estimates. Worst selloffs in Microsoft history:(@modestproposal)
Crash of 87
Dot com bubble
GFC
Covid
2026, Microsoft cloud growth slowdown
Alphabet has been the only major cloud player moving over the past 6 months, the one vertical AI player. (wsj)
Follow-up from earlier this week, software under a ton of selling pressure. EV/FCF multiples at 7 year lows. (@jrichlive)
Looks like the US will move on Iran after the market closes today. The article below highlights the assets they’ve moved into the Arabian Sea. (FT Article)
Canadian housing nightmare. Townhome in North York (Toronto) sells for less than it did in 2016. (@BenRabidoux)
The Bay Area remains the center of the start-up universe. (@PeterJ_Walker)
