Blog 2 Columns

[This blog post is an excerpt from a recent commentary at www.speculative-investor.com]

We generally don’t engage in unprovable/unfalsifiable conspiracy-linked speculation to explain market performance or government policy, but today we are making an exception because we are struggling to come up with a more straightforward explanation for Trump’s recent actions.

Tariffs would be negative for the US economy even if they were not large in percentage terms and were introduced in a measured way, but the haphazard way in which large tariffs have been imposed and changed over the past two months greatly magnifies the economic damage that will be done. Furthermore, another intervention under consideration could be even more damaging than the tariffs that have been threatened/implemented to date. We are referring to the port fee plan discussed in an article posted at lloydslist.com on 11th March. Here is an excerpt:

“The US Trade Representative announced on February 21 that it plans to levy exorbitant port fees — in some cases over a million dollars — for every US port call by Chinese transport operators, Chinese-built ships, all operators that have any ships on order at Chinese yards, and according to one interpretation of the proposal (based on a presidential draft order obtained by Lloyd’s List), all operators with any Chinese-built ships in their fleets.

The USTR plan would also mandate that a portion of US exports be carried on US-flagged and, eventually, US-built vessels.

Respondents had until Monday to submit comments to the USTR if they wanted to testify at the hearing on the proposal on March 24. They responded in droves, overwhelmingly negatively, with several predicting a disaster for importers, exporters and the US economy in general if the USTR did not kill the port fee plan.

Some executives also bluntly asserted that if the plan was approved as written, their companies would go out of business or leave the US.”

If the port fee plan is implemented it will inflict a devastating blow on the US economy, with no potential upside in either the short-term or the long-term. Why, then, is it even being considered?

The port fee plan and the reckless way in which tariffs are being imposed/threatened only make sense if the Trump Administration is trying to ensure that the US economy goes into recession soon. If this is the plan then there is already evidence of success, in that the High Yield Index Option Adjusted Spread (HYIOAS), an indicator of US credit spreads, generated a recession warning signal last week. The signal is the weekly close above the 65-week MA (the blue line on the following chart).

Why on earth would the Trump team want a recession to happen ASAP?

One reason is that a recession this year could be blamed on Biden. In a way this would be appropriate, because the US economy probably would have gone into recession 12-18 months ago if not for the Biden Administration’s use of aggressive deficit-spending and other tools (mainly, issuing a higher percentage of short-term debt as mentioned below) to delay the inevitable until after the November-2024 elections.

Another reason is that a recession would create a financial/economic backdrop in which there was much greater demand for Treasury securities, enabling the US Treasury to ‘term out’ the government’s debt at lower interest rates. By way of further explanation, during 2023-2024 the US Treasury under Janet Yellen substantially increased the use of short-term debt to finance the government’s deficit and in doing so reduced the average term of the total debt. The new Treasury Secretary (Scott Bessent) must now return the average term of the debt to where it should be, which only could be done by increasing the issuance of long-term debt relative to the issuance of short-term debt. This would put upward pressure on long-term interest rates, but if there were a recession then this pressure probably would be more than offset by an increase in the demand for the relative safety provided by long-dated Treasury securities.

A third reason is that if a recession occurs this year, then the economy probably will look fine by the time the mid-term elections roll around in late-2026.

There’s now a high probability that if a US recession is not already underway then it will begin within the next three months. Therefore, if this is happening according to a plan to get the inevitable recession out of the way in 2025, then the first part of the plan is coming together.

[This blog post is an excerpt from a commentary at www.speculative-investor.com]

We haven’t discussed global monetary inflation for a while, mainly because very little was happening and what was happening was having minimal effect on asset prices or economic performance. However, the global money-supply situation is now noteworthy.

First of all, attempts to reflate clearly are being made in some parts of the world. From our perspective, the most significant of these attempts are evident in the following monthly charts showing the monetary inflation rates in Australia and Canada. In both cases, year-over-year (YOY) money-supply growth rates have rebounded strongly from negative territory (monetary deflation territory, that is) to around 7%. These rebounds are setting the scene for economic booms, but we suspect that the booms won’t start until next year and that in the meantime there will be more economic weakness.

However, in the world’s most influential economies/regions there is no evidence, yet, that a concerted attempt to reflate is underway. In particular:

1. The following charts show that although the money-supply growth rates of both the US and the euro-zone have rebounded from the deep deflationary levels of 2023, the current levels (around 2%) are very low by historical standards. The current levels have tended to be associated with recessions and/or credit crises, not booms.

2. The next chart shows that while China’s YOY M2 growth rate remains moderately high by Western standards, it is near a multi-decade low. This means that the monetary stimulus introduced last September in China is yet to have a discernible effect on monetary conditions.

By the way, normally we show China’s M1 growth rate rather than its M2 growth rate, but the PBOC changed its M1 calculation methodology in January-2025 and in doing so made comparisons with previous months/years impossible. As far as we can tell, China’s M1 is roughly unchanged over the past year.

3. Our final chart shows that Japan’s YOY M2 growth rate is near an 18-year low, so the BOJ’s concern about price inflation in Japan is leading to tight monetary conditions. These tight monetary conditions probably will lead to economic weakness, much lower price inflation levels and additional Yen strength over the next 12 months, prompting the BOJ to return to its pro-inflation ways. Like all central banks, the BOJ is adjusting monetary policy based on what it sees in the rearview mirror.

The combination of the malinvestment that occurred in response to the massive monetary inflation of 2020-2022 and the current low levels of monetary inflation in the world’s most important economies increases the risk that the world is heading towards a period of widespread economic weakness.

[This blog post is an excerpt from a recent commentary at www.speculative-investor.com]

The official US gold reserve is 260M ounces and is an asset on the balance sheet of the Fed. Currently the asset is valued at $11B, which equates to only US$42.22/ounce, whereas the actual market value of the asset is around US$770B. There recently has been speculation that the asset would be re-priced to reflect its current market value. What is the chance of this happening and what would be the likely effects? We will deal with the second part of this question first.

If the value of the asset on the Fed’s balance sheet were increased by US$750B, the re-valuation would, we assume, result in the Fed adding $750B to the Treasury General Account (TGA — the federal government’s demand account at the Fed). In effect, the Fed would be creating 750 billion new dollars that the government could spend. Therefore, the revaluation immediately would increase the US money supply by $750B. In addition, as the money was spent by the government, that is, as the money made its way from the Fed to the commercial banks, it would boost bank reserves.

The monetary injection into the economy that would occur as the government spent its newly acquired 750 billion dollars would give the economy a short-term boost. This means that if the revaluation were to happen within the next couple of months it could postpone a recession and provide some support to the stock market. It would not, however, be bullish for gold, unless gold is now a pro-cyclical asset.

Although the initial effect on the economy would be positive, the economic boost would be of a short-term nature only. One reason is that it would result in higher inflation and therefore higher long-term interest rates. A related reason is that it would prompt the Fed to extend its QT in order to absorb the additional money and reserves created by the revaluation.

Due to the short-term nature of any positive effect on the economy, from a purely political perspective it would make more sense to implement the revaluation during the final year of the Presidential term (2028, that is) rather than during the first year. This suggests to us that the probability of the revaluation happening this year is low. Furthermore, in an interview last Thursday (20th February) Scott Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary, stated that revaluing the official gold reserve was not what he had in mind when he recently mentioned the possibility of monetising the balance sheet, although he wouldn’t be drawn on whether revaluing the gold was under consideration.

We suspect that if the official US gold reserve is revalued it will happen as part of a stimulus package during the next recession or it will be done to give the economy a short-term boost during the lead-up to the next Presidential election. It’s not likely to happen within the next few months.

[This blog post is an excerpt from a commentary published last week at www.speculative-investor.com]

The war between Russia and the NATO-supported Ukraine that began almost exactly three years ago with Russia’s invasion of its neighbour, is one of the more stupid and unnecessary wars of the past century involving the US and/or Europe. It’s likely that this war never would have begun had there been formal acceptance on the parts of the major Western powers that Ukraine would remain neutral, that is, that Ukraine would never be part of NATO. Instead, the push to make Ukraine part of NATO that began in 2008 continued, with the result that millions of Ukrainians have been killed or lost their homes and a lot of Ukraine’s infrastructure has been destroyed. With negotiations now underway between the US and Russia governments, what are the chances that this unnecessary and devastating conflict will end within the next few months?

The short answer is that we can’t quantify the chances, but it’s clear that while it won’t be easy to arrive at a settlement there are strong incentives for both sides to end the fighting. The incentives for Ukraine and NATO are:

1) Stop the loss of Ukrainian lives and property.

2) End the costly transfer of military support to Ukraine — support that is achieving nothing other than prolonging the agony.

3) Prevent Russia from gaining more of Ukraine than it already has, the reality being that the longer the war goes on the more Ukrainian territory will be lost and the closer Ukraine will be to a complete military collapse.

4) Prevent Russia from becoming a bigger military threat to Europe. A large part of the official justification for NATO’s involvement in the war was to prevent Russia from threatening other parts of Europe, but at the outset of the war it was clear that Russia posed no military threat whatsoever to NATO. This was evidenced by the incompetence demonstrated by Russia’s armed forces during the first six months of the war. However, one of the unintended and ironic consequences of this war is that it has resulted in Russia’s military becoming much larger and more capable than it was, that is, it has resulted in Russia becoming a much bigger threat than it otherwise would have been. Furthermore, it’s likely that the longer the war continues, the stronger Russia will become militarily.

5) For the Trump Administration, there is the incentive of making good on a campaign promise and the fact that if the war were to continue beyond this year it would become as much Trump’s war as Biden’s war.

The Russian government also has incentives to bring the fighting to an end. They are:

1) End the massive transfer of resources from the broad economy to the war effort. Although Russia’s government has taken steps to keep a lot of the war-related costs off its own books, the war is creating major problems for the Russian economy. The most visible of these problems is rapid price inflation, which is causing the central bank to maintain its targeted interest rate at 21%. The longer the war goes on, the greater will be the wealth destruction within Russia. Putin almost certainly realises this.

2) End the sanctions that are making it more costly for Russian companies to export and limiting Russians’ access to imports.

3) Reduce the political risk for the current leadership. The longer the war goes on and the more distorted Russia’s economy becomes as a result, the greater the risk to Putin.

The incentives are there, but ending the war still will be difficult because the only deal that will be possible now will be worse, from a Ukrainian/Western perspective, than the deal that was rejected by Ukraine, at the behest of the US and the UK, a month after the war started. Increasing the degree of difficulty is that the bulk of the analysis of the war disseminated by the Western media is unrealistic. According to much of what is seen/read in the West, if ‘we’ can keep the costly military support for Ukraine going for a little longer, then Russia may be defeated. If not, then the Russian expansion won’t stop with Ukraine.

For the West, we think that being realistic involves accepting that:

1) Ukraine will never become part of NATO.

2) There will be no NATO ‘peacekeeping’ troops in Ukraine.

3) Most of the Ukrainian territory that has been taken by Russia up to now will stay with Russia.

And for Russia, we think that being realistic mainly involves accepting that Ukraine, as an independent country, will be free to elect its own government and maintain its own military. Also, although Russia will not accept Ukraine being in NATO, it may have to accept Ukraine being in the EU.

Hopefully the war, and along with it the bloodshed and destruction, will end within the next few months. Shortly after it does end, the rebuilding of Ukraine will begin. The rebuilding effort will, we think, be bullish for most industrial commodities.

[This blog post is a brief excerpt from a recent commentary at www.speculative-investor.com]

We get the impression that some major sentiment extremes are close. In particular, we appear to be at/near peak optimism about the US stock market and the US dollar, peak pessimism about the US T-Bond market, and peaks in the expected effects of Trump’s policies on US economic growth and inflation. These sentiment extremes are inter-related, in that the very popular view that Trump’s policies will drive US economic growth and inflation upward has magnified the decline in the T-Bond price (the rise in the T-Bond yield), which has, in turn, magnified the rally in the US$.

In the T-Bond market, an intermediate-term reversal is likely during the next month. Possible catalysts for the reversal are more evidence of weakness in the US labour market, a surprisingly low CPI or PCE number, a downside breakout in the oil price, an announcement by the Fed that it is ending QT and a steep pullback in the stock market, but note that with such a high level of general bearishness about the T-Bond’s prospects it won’t take much to bring about the initial ‘turning of the tide’.

At around the same time as or soon after the T-Bond price reverses upward, the US$ should begin to weaken on the foreign exchange market. Further to the comment we made above, this is because it was the rise in the T-Bond yield that extended the US dollar’s rally from its September low to the point where it recently made multi-year highs against most other currencies.

The US stock market (the SPX) also could make an intermediate-term reversal soon, although for two reasons there is a realistic chance that the stock market’s inevitable reversal will be delayed despite the apparent sentiment extreme. One is that the stock market could be given a boost by declining interest rates after the T-Bond price begins to trend upward. The other is that the passive investing funds that now dominate the stock market will continue to support equity prices as long as there is a net flow of money into these funds, and there probably will be a net flow of money into these funds until the economy becomes significantly weaker.

The upshot is that the stage is set for some important trend reversals in the financial world. What we are now awaiting is evidence of reversal in the price action.

[Below is a brief excerpt from a commentary published at www.speculative-investor.com on 22nd December 2024]

Interest rates are always among the most important determinants of currency exchange rates, but over the past two years they have dominated. We cite the following two charts as evidence.

The first chart compares the US$/Yen exchange rate (the black line) with the yield on the US 10-year T-Note (the green line). This chart only illustrates the strong positive correlation between these two markets over the past two years, but the relationship has existed and has been tracked at TSI — normally via a chart that compares the Yen with the price of the 10-year T-Note — for much longer.

The second chart compares the Dollar Index (the black line) with the yield on the US 10-year T-Note (the green line).

These charts show that over the past two years the US$ has strengthened against other fiat currencies whenever the US 10-year T-Note yield has risen and weakened against other fiat currencies whenever the US 10-year T-Note yield has fallen. The relationship operates on a trend basis rather than a daily or weekly basis, although it was evident last Friday when a slightly lower-than-forecast Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Index prompted a dip in the T-Note yield, which, in turn, prompted a pullback in the US dollar’s exchange rate.

The overarching message being sent by the above charts is that for the US$ to continue strengthening, the US 10-year T-Note yield will have to continue trending upward. This is unlikely, because we probably are now seeing a sentiment peak related to the expected inflationary effects of Trump’s policies, US economic strength, US stock market outperformance and Federal Reserve ‘hawkishness’. What we haven’t seen yet are any signs in the price action that the trends of the past 2-3 months have ended.

[This blog post is an excerpt from a recent commentary published at www.speculative-investor.com]

The phrase “Drill baby drill” has been around for a long time, but Trump embraced it during his recent campaign to describe the approach to drilling for oil that would be taken by his administration. What will be the likely effect on the oil price of this approach to oil industry regulation? The short answer is: The effect probably will be minor. For a longer answer, read on.

One reason that the effect of this new approach won’t be substantial is that for all its words to the contrary, the Biden Administration did very little to hinder oil drilling. Therefore, the Trump Administration’s “Drill baby drill” approach will not constitute a major change.

The second and most important reason is that in the absence of regulatory roadblocks the actions of the oil industry will be determined mainly be the oil price. It’s reasonable to expect that drilling activity would ramp up if the oil price were to make a sustained move above $90/barrel, but it’s also reasonable to expect that drilling activity would be slowed if the oil price were to make a sustained move below $60/barrel. Therefore, Trump’s opinion that in the absence of regulatory obstacles the oil industry will drive the price down to very low levels is not plausible.

The reality is that although the oil industry is notoriously undisciplined, due to what transpired over the past ten years the one thing that will instil discipline in the future is a low oil price. In the future, an oil company CEO who continues to expand, or more likely fails to cut, production in response to sustained weakness in the oil price probably won’t keep his/her job.

It’s therefore likely that the future response of US-based oil producers will act to keep the oil price in a wide range. That is, it’s likely that in the absence of other influences the future supply response of the US oil industry will create both a ceiling and a floor for the oil price.

Of course, there will be other influences, one of the most important of which will be the actions taken by OPEC+. OPEC+ has about 5 million barrels/day of spare capacity that could be brought on line relatively quickly and cheaply. This represents a bigger threat to the oil price than the “drill baby drill” policy in the US.

In all likelihood, OPEC+ will act similarly to the US oil industry and only increase its production in response to a sustained rise in the oil price to a much higher level. However, there are plausible scenarios under which OPEC could ramp-up its production despite weakness in the oil price. It has done so in the past with the aim of creating financial problems for its competitors in the West and forcing these competitors to reduce production. It could do so again for this reason or because the Saudi leadership does a deal with the Trump Administration that involves guarantees of security/weapons in exchange for a price-suppressing boost to oil production.

Our view at this time is that a much higher oil price is a realistic possibility for 2026-2027, but that the oil price will spend the next 12 months in the $60-$90 range. Furthermore, whereas it probably would take a war-related supply disruption to push the oil price well above the top of the aforementioned range, a move to well below the bottom of the range could result from either OPEC ramping-up production for the reasons mentioned above or a severe recession.

[This blog post is an excerpt from a commentary published last week at www.speculative-investor.com]

Jurisdictional risk materialises with no warning

Jurisdictional risk is any additional risk that arises from doing business in a foreign country. The problem with this type of risk is that when it materialises, it does so without warning.

As exemplified by two recent events, jurisdictional risk for gold mining companies is relatively high among the countries of West Africa (the countries highlighted on the following map). The first of these events was a statement in early-October from the president of Burkina Faso that the government may withdraw existing permits for gold mines. This statement affected a number of Western gold mining companies, including TSI stock selection Fortuna Mining (FSM). FSM currently generates about 25% of its gold production in Burkina Faso.

The aforementioned statement by Burkina Faso’s president caused a 10% single-day plunge in the FSM stock price. The company put out a press release that soothed fears and the stock price quickly recovered, but the risk remains and could move back to centre-stage at any time.

The second of these events occurred early this week when Australia-listed Resolute Mining (RSG.AX), which is not a current TSI stock, advised that its CEO and two other employees had been detained by the government of Mali due to a disagreement over the government’s share of revenue from RSG’s Syama gold mine. In response to this news the RSG stock price immediately dropped by around 30% and, as illustrated by the following daily chart, is down by more than 50% from last month’s high. At the time of writing the employees are still being held hostage by the Mali government, which apparently is demanding a $160M payment.

In response to the RSG news, the stocks of some other gold mining companies with substantial exposure to Mali were hit hard. The hit to the B2Gold (BTG) stock price was relatively mild, however, even though the company’s most important currently-producing mine (Fekola) is located in Mali. We assume that this is because the company negotiated a new agreement with the Mali government only two months ago.

When nothing untoward happens in a country with high jurisdictional risk over a long period, investors tend to forget about the risk and the risk discount factored into the stock prices of companies operating in that country becomes small. As mentioned at the start of this discussion, the problem is that when this type of risk materialises, which it eventually almost always does, there is never any warning and therefore never time to get out prior to the price collapse. This is not a reason to avoid completely the stocks of companies operating in high-risk countries, but it is a reason to only buy such stocks when the risk discount is high and to manage the risk via appropriate position sizing and scaling out into strength.

Balance sheet risk materialises WITH warning

Unlike jurisdictional risk, balance sheet risk doesn’t suddenly appear out of nowhere. The signs of trouble are almost always obvious for a long period before the ‘crunch’. If management doesn’t take decisive action soon enough to recapitalise the company, there will no longer be an opportunity to recapitalise in a way that doesn’t destroy a huge amount of shareholder value. On Wednesday of this week the shareholders of i-80 Gold (IAU.TO) learned this lesson.

The IAU stock price was down 58% to a new all-time low on Wednesday 13th November in reaction to the company reporting its financial situation, operating results and a new development plan. In a nutshell, it was an acknowledgement that the company is under severe financial stress. However, this should not have come as a big surprise given that the company reported a working capital deficit of US$60M more than three months ago and has a loss-making business, meaning that the working capital deficit was bound to increase in the absence of new long-term financing.

A strong balance sheet is especially important for gold mining companies that either are in the mine construction phase or have commenced production but are not cash-flow positive. That’s because such companies need a sizable ‘cash/financing cushion’ to stay in business. For exploration-stage companies, having such a cushion is not as critical because these companies can survive by either temporarily stopping their exploration work or doing the occasional small equity financing.

The crux of the matter is that close attention should be paid to the balance sheet, which forms part of the information that public companies issue on a quarterly basis.