Jeff Currie on Iran, volatility and opportunities in undervalued assets

This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors or inaccuracies. It is provided for reference only and should not be considered a fully accurate record of the conversation.

Amrita

I don't think we've seen either of us have seen anything like this in our careers. I know we've.

Jeff

Actually Covid is similar here, just the other direction. And by the way, it's almost a mirror image.

Amrita

Yeah. The amount of volume we're talking about on the supply loss for the Middle East is very similar to the amount of demand loss. Yeah. And yes, you did say correctly, we've been playing phone tag as well because this is the first time ever, you know how responsive our I'm. Yeah. I can't even keep track of like, messages and phones.

Amrita

It's just insane. Yes. What do you make of the situation of what's going on in the Middle East? You know, we've calculated about 15 million barrels per day of oil crude plus products. LTG stranded number could get bigger, depending on, you know, how you classify things. Yeah.

Jeff

Okay, I'm going to. Yeah. Just start. I think the damage is done. You know, you take the from bare minimum inventories to the oil glut and I'll give all the oil glut people there. You know, the numbers. Let's say it was 590 million barrels, which is kind of where I go. And, you know, even with the SPR releases, which is a max you could probably do is 2 million barrels a day.

Jeff

Yeah. That means by the end of March, that's in like two weeks, you will have lost in total, roughly 450 million barrels. It's gone. Yeah. And that's just, you know, let's take like, Poly Market. Poly market puts a 98% probability is still shut by the end of March. So I don't want to get into that view, which I don't think you're reopening.

Amrita

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff

That means, you know, the you're in a very tight, precarious situation. The mirror image of Covid. Yeah. And so if you can look at every like we have admiral surveyed us at Carlyle and his opinion, this thing's at least four weeks before 2 to 4 weeks, bare minimum. You look at Poly Market. So all the the the experts in military and poly markets and every other measure.

Jeff

You say this thing's staying shut. Financial markets and oil markets are out to launch even at $100 barrel, which is where we are right now. And so, you know, I mean, you look at I look at this more I want to shore airline stocks. This is this is a repeat of Covid but just the other way around.

Amrita

Yeah. So I mean our base case is end of the month. Yeah. As and what we are consistently saying is this situation is so fluid, that even if things were to reopen, it's not going to be like, this is the thing I'm struggling with the most. It is not going to be back to the old normal. The new normal will not look anything like the old normal.

Amrita

There's going to be super like cautiousness amongst shippers. All the majors that you and I speak to. They have said to me as well, they're like, I'm just not going to put my crew through just the very next day. You never know if there is going to be another strike, right? So there needs to be a lot of certainty.

Amrita

But I have a couple of questions for you. First one, I think you laugh. You've been doing this long enough, but this is the biggest fear in the market, right? The streets are going to get shorted and they're short in. And how come no one's prepared?

Jeff

Yeah, I actually have a friend of mine who was in the government back in, you know, 20 years ago. They used to have these oil crisis scenario planning. They wanted to do shutting off the Straits as the government. And this was under like, I think it was Obama. Yeah. And they came to the all of like shell and everybody that it will never happen.

Jeff

You don't even need to do that right. Well here it's happened. They're completely unprepared.

Amrita

So so you think even though this has been the most feared thing in the market for decades, because it's so out there, nobody's actually prepared for it because that's what it looks like.

Jeff

I think part of the reason why the financial markets are not reacting is they never thought it could happen. And they're in denial. Yes. And they believe that it will be opened. Yes. And that the US in Trump will prevail and that they can get it open somehow, even though nobody's articulated a plan to them or how they're going to open it, but they still believe it's going to be open it is.

Amrita

So this is this is because that's exactly right. Like, I think the disbelief is what is guiding. And I was speaking to somebody in the industry who I really respect who said to me that everybody's like, oh, the streets can't stay closed for a month because it's going to kill the world economy. He's like, but you have your argument back to front.

Amrita

Yes, the straight can't stay closed for a month because the world economy will not survive. But that doesn't mean it won't be shut for a month, because the forces that are driving, whether it's shut or open, don't care about the world economy. It's about survival.

Jeff

Yeah, there's there's a belief that Trump can taco in this. Things are all going to be fine. And I think that's what it is that he that I mean.

Amrita

Because he's done it for Tarrio, he's done it for all this.

Jeff

Stuff. But there's a KPI called open or shut of the, the, the, the Straits, which means he cannot Taco it's an impossibility. He can get up there and go he and try to do like what George Bush Jr did with landing on the mission accomplished on that aircraft carrier in 2004. That option is not.

Amrita

Available because Iran ultimately controls you.

Jeff

Right? I actually I argue China ultimately controls when it's open or close. And he's going to China is going to go into that meeting with Trump at the end of this month, in early April with this thing shut. They're getting their one and a half to 2 million barrels per day out of it. And China. And by the way, they are they're going bricks.

Jeff

Now they're saying this is the BRICs bloc, China block, whatever you want to call it. Russia's in great shape. Sanctions are off. Iran is getting reinforcements from Russia. And I love they turn off the satellite so the Iranians can't see. No, the rays are using US satellites. They're using Russian satellites. And I think there's just an absolute denial in mis understanding of what's going on.

Jeff

And by the way, it's like comparing this to Covid. Yeah. You know, I'm not a conspiracy. I just going to throw this something out. The think about Covid demolished the manufacturing sector of the United States. In Europe. You put manufacturing power of China, on a graph against the West. It's just night and day, just the US and and, Europe decline.

Jeff

China goes up and the gap is by 50% in percentage points. It's huge. Who's going to be the biggest benefactor of this? It's going to be the BRICs. And yeah I don't think it's coincidence that China is rolling out. Look at our new EVs. They can charge in seven minutes and you're seeing the ads on it everywhere. It's almost like this has played into their hand perfectly.

Amrita

And I mean, I'll say this if you're right in the sense that India is the least affected. If you're talking about the BRICs, I mean, Russia suddenly, overnight. So we were recording it today and yesterday, which is 12th of March. The US is now said you can buy Russian oil again at least what's on water. So the Russian discount, which were going down to $3,040 at FOB prices.

Amrita

So what Russia was selling at was in the 40s is now skyrocketed. And they're getting 100 plus. So India was already granted this waiver a few a week ago. Sorry. So suddenly they are okay and they've been the least affected. China. Yes. There are some refineries cutting runs because they used to load from the within the Hormuz.

Amrita

But China still has a lot of strategic reserves, right? Yes. They're being cautious about it. But they have also said you can't export products. Keep it for ourselves. Yeah, that's going to hurt the rest of the world. So in general of all of Asia, which is so badly affected, India and then China are the least affected. Yeah, I completely agree with that if you look at that that way.

Amrita

But what for me, the question is because we've seen this in the oil market right? Complete denial that this could even happen. So many of hedge funds, etc. have been brought into it because of the glut. I think one of the biggest reasons we've put out, you know, our research saying oil is still undervalued because if you genuinely do it on a supply demand basis, we should be much higher.

Amrita

But this isn't just about, oh, what's the US going to do because they can't talk this thing down. This is an actual supply disruption. The amount of losses, the challenges with risk management. This is a trading issue as well. There's just not enough people out there to go along. And on top of that, this is believe oh this is going to get resolved tomorrow.

Amrita

Yeah. Well how do you think that plays out.

Jeff

Well I think the it goes back to a point. I actually you and I are labeled perma bulls. I just want to make it very clear that, you know, I remember where we were sitting here. Let's say it was around July of 2024, pounding the table by gold, by copper, by oil. Had you bought those three? You think we were trading $85 oil at the time?

Jeff

Everybody goes, oh, it's lost, lost lots. All of that lost money in that time period. Just a simple long over that time period, a rolling front month oil you're up 40%, gold you're up 112%. And in copper you're up something like 60%. So it just goes to a point. You want to be long ball. And the world in that low interest rate environment going back to, you know, started around 2009.

Jeff

All assets under management went into VCP private credit multi strats which were the the the the short vol strategies. And it's just like you know so we're probably part of the table over and over. You want to be long this because you want to be long ball. And you know whether if it you know is a you know, the fact of the matter is, you know, they're going to go, oh, well, you know, if it weren't for the, the situation in the Middle East, you know, the oil, it goes back to a point we were saying on this by being short oil, you're we're basically trying to accuse, you know, the minister of, OPEC of being doing something, of shooting himself in the foot. He was not shooting himself in the foot.

Amrita

I'm glad you bring up Prince Abdulaziz, because this is something, you know, he's warned about. I mean, again, not not the straight being shot. He's he's warned about the complacency that's been in the market, right, that there's ample supply or the lack of investment that's been happening. Well, we don't need to invest in oil and gas. He's been talking about security of supply for so long.

Amrita

Asia gets it right. And now suddenly you've got every single country going don't export products. And I keep saying this. We are the ones who buy the product from the east. It hasn't hit us yet. Give us two months. We're going to see the prices skyrocket right. Very very quickly. So I know he has been saying this and there's a few others in the Middle East.

Amrita

I would say generally the GCC has been kind of talking about, look, you need that stability and everything else. Why do you think we've gotten into this mindset? Because like you said, the losses, I mean, the amount of blood on the street, as you would call it, is, is it's really worrying, to be honest. But but why was it so inherent in everybody's DNA to short oil?

Amrita

Because there's a glut story. But a lot of people weren't starting to challenge it. Is it because everybody fundamentally believes Trump will not allow high prices ahead of the midterms?

Jeff

Actually, you know, I've been thinking a lot of but he's even said he allow hype not yesterday. I actually I think there's two factors that's going on. And one thing and even Prince Abdulaziz has said it himself is the, the the machines dominate the U.S.. You can yell as loud as you want right now and the markets don't.

Jeff

They're just going to pick up on sentiment and other factors. So there's no human beings making decisions anymore. And by the way, the machines lost it this Monday Tuesday. They couldn't figure out what was going on. And that you need a factory eye view. You have to have hybrid. A human being can't trade these markets. It's just too much going to be you need to have a hybrid discretionary type structure where the human gets out there and goes, hey, this doesn't make a lot of sense for that.

Jeff

And I think the problem is that is that the sentiment measures were so bearish over there all and by the way, it also tells you if you're trying to game the system is put out a bunch of reports bearish bearish bearish bearish the machines pick up on it. They trade the bearishness the market. But here's the big one that I really we put out a piece called a Crude Awakening.

Jeff

And in there we made the point that part of the reason this market was trading heavy. It makes the current spike so dangerous, is beginning in July, 2022 when the U.S, and Europe basically sees the Russian central bank assets and everyone then they were straight up. Yeah. Now this is so obvious, I say that I cannot believe I didn't make this point over before, but from that point forward there was no more dollar recycling.

Jeff

It was done. Nobody buys any U.S. dollar assets no more. So when oil price was to go up, they would not go into the US anymore. They bought gold. That's part of the reason why gold just went to the moon. Yeah. And so what happened is you lost that credit pool. So one thing that always happened when oil would go up, like in the 2000, it was like QE.

Jeff

Yeah. Because then the flash all this money into to the system and then you would just see everything take off. And so high oil prices were good to the global economy because it created QE, because they would save that dynamics gone. And that's part of the reason this thing was trading so heavy. Now let's ask what's happening right now.

Jeff

Oh that starts to hurt because now you have the run up in prices and you're not getting that QE effect going into the system. In fact, it's even worse because you have shut down the, you know, that the ability of the GCC countries to fund the world, right? You've had a failed German auction, you have, mortgage products in the US starting to, you know, become under pressure.

Jeff

They're pulling them because they don't have the the credit pool is shrinking. And I think this is a really important point. Everybody goes, oh, the U.S has energy dominance at the income level. Yeah it does at the cash flow. But we get to the wealth and credit level. Oh my god America is in trouble. And why do you don't think Iran gets this?

Jeff

I mean I hope everybody knows Iran targeted the Kuwaiti pension fund building. Did you know that? No. Yeah. They took it out. They're telling the Americans we're not coming after we're going after the big prize, which is a $60 trillion US equity market. That's a big target. No, most of the world's wealth is sitting in that thing. And then the other point I'd like to make is the paradox of energy dominance.

Jeff

You look at the US equity market, 3% or less, call it 2 trillion is energy company. Yeah 2 trillion. That's it. The stuff that's short oil in that US equity market is 50 plus percent. It's roughly $30 trillion 2 trillion versus 30 trillion. That's a big short. Yeah. Yeah. In short. And so from a wealth perspective it's going to get ugly.

Jeff

And I think part of the reason why they're shutting down satellites and everything like that, they don't want to create fear in the United States right now. And then because you saw the reaction we met 200. We'll see what happens tomorrow, the next day. I think that's why Trump is backed off. But the reality is they're incredibly exposed through the credit channel, the Wealth Channel.

Jeff

And they claim they have energy dominance, by the way. Now let's go back to China, who has energy dominance here?

Amrita

I think we know the.

Jeff

Critical minerals dynamic. They control the global commodity supply chain valve. They can turn it off, turn it on. And let's see what happens when XI and Trump meet at the end of this month. We'll see who has the leverage there.

Amrita

Do you think Trump has anything other than being able to talk it down? Because, you know, usually you and I have been to many of this where prices go up in the fear of this is not a fear of this is outright disruption. Can you do anything.

Jeff

To I point there is nothing. There is no policy option.

Amrita

Unless unless this actually comes to an end. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Jeff

But even if he ends the war, if they want to bomb it, they'll close the street forever. There's nothing they can do.

Amrita

I think this is the challenge. When I'm speaking to companies, they're saying, fine, let's say this trade opens. But what if this becomes like Russia, Ukraine? You have these sporadic attacks. On ships, on energy infrastructure. We can never like go back to normal then. Right. There's always going to be this much longer like sailing times and whatever else.

Amrita

So this is the thing I mean yeah I mean look we might be looking back. I'd not maybe we will be looking back in history and saying this is going to be a redefining moment.

Jeff

Yeah. How I actually that I'm on that point before I say, is what really makes us different are drones, because there's people that wrote this, this reporting.

Amrita

Missiles and yeah, the.

Jeff

Convoys can try. They worked in the 1980s. They don't work now in a world of drones. But let's go back to your point about, you know, this is a NATO. It's not a trade, it's a regime ship. We're never looking back. It is. Yeah, it's it's not. By the way, my own personal PA and now I, you know, I don't work for a, you know, a bank anymore.

Jeff

I'm buying oil. Yeah. I'm buying and so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Even at $100 oil.

Amrita

This thing should be going up significantly. Because my next question for you related to this is the only way this solves itself. It is really ugly for the world economy. Demand has to come off. Yeah, because the supply gap is so large. Spro I mean, come on, like you said, like we we've put the report out there 2 million barrels per day.

Amrita

I like let's even if you call it 2.5 million barrels, but our flow rate will take five and a half months. Yeah. It's not going to help us. SPR will be like 200 million barrels. The lowest it can go to is probably 150, is what I'm hearing. And then you're at critically low levels, right? You you're running out of Spro.

Amrita

And guess who's built SVR over the last few years is China. Yeah. Right. So again it goes back to but but the point being is that you cannot solve this kind of a supply crisis without prices skyrocketing to kill demand. Yeah. So if you were to fast forward let's assume best case scenario this ends and by the end of this month.

Amrita

Right. But still the damage done. Like do we go into a recession by the end of this year? Is that how bad things will have to be?

Jeff

I like to call oil is the rare earth of the macro system. And why do I say that? Remember what the reason why Trump tako down on tariffs in the trade war with the Chinese is? He discovered a small magnet that goes into the doors of the cars on the Detroit assembly line. You take the magnet out, they shut down the assembly line because of energy transition.

Jeff

We have taking down the efficiency. So the only thing that oil is used for is the most critical, parts of the global economy, like jet fuel, you can only fly an airplane off jet fuel, which, by the way, I'd be shorting airline stocks all day long.

Amrita

Right now, jet is so tight, I don't know how. I think there'll be some outright shortages.

Jeff

Yeah, yeah. We're there. I think we're there in the. And so as you pull that barrel of oil out of the system, it's going to have a much larger it's not demand destruction anymore. It's output shut down. You're going to turn off plants. You're going to turn down petrochemicals. Then the cascading effect on supply chains. This is a repeat of Covid.

Jeff

And and by the way I think how Covid denial denial I remember that time as it was like January 20th has gone the second largest economy in the world just shut down. And I looked at the markets, oil still at like 58 and everything. I go, this is denial. Yeah. In fact, I actually I remember I was, I was actually talking to Pierre Andre.

Jeff

He's back at the top of the league tables again, but we were talking about it in the, in, in that period. It was a level denial. It lasted like six weeks. And then the thing just fell off a cliff. And I think the same thing here, it's just denial, denial, denial. But I want to go back to your point about about these regime shifts.

Jeff

It always happen when you have a big geopolitical event. Let's take September 11th. That was the end of the.com boom. And we look at the chain reactions, September 11th, how trade towers happened. And then the next thing is George Bush Jr needed to get approval in the UN security case. Back then they used to ask for approval.

Jeff

Unlike they do now. He needed approval to wage war in the Middle East. So he needed China's vote because China is part of the UN Security Council of the five there. So he traded in you see, when it happened, it happened right around September 13th or 14th. He traded a vote in the UN Security Council to be, to for admission in the WTO.

Jeff

And from the we know what happened once they were on January 1st of 2002, we were off to the races in commodities. Yeah. By the way, we were bullish commodities that the asset rotation going into into September 11, we were pounding the table. That was we created the term, you know the revenge of the old economy. So you were seeing the asset rotation just like we are today.

Jeff

You're seeing the asset rotation going into this. Whatever comes out on the back side. And again, I think it's going to be the same. Trump's committee, you know, negotiating with with China because China is the one who holds the key here, just like they did in September 11th. We'll come out with some type of environment. One thing I am sure of is that it's going to be a world that supports hard assets development and or I love the term halo, heavy asset, low obsolescence.

Jeff

Yeah. You want to own Halo as much as you possibly can.

Amrita

And that that trend had already started even prior to this. But tell me the other thing, which I think has created a lot of pain this time around. Generally wars are bullish dollar bearish bonds, right? But this time around, this war is so inflationary that I think the bond shorts have also been caught out. Right. And bonds been rallying.

Amrita

Do you see a situation where central banks we're talking to our macro guys and we were having this debate. They're saying, hang on, central banks. I was like, surely is inflationary. You know, be careful of these rate cuts. Right. They're like, no, no, they might look past that and say, this is so bad for the world economy.

Amrita

We need to start cutting rates to shore up growth. I was like, this is the energy price spike is only going to continue and you're going to cut rates. Yep.

Jeff

100%. I mean, lesson number one from the 1970s. Why they made it worse is they raised rates. So you.

Amrita

Think central.

Jeff

Banks I think we'll go as far as QE. You've just lost all of that capital coming out of the GFC going into the Western Front again. Yeah. We had a failed German auction. And boons are the best highest quality credit on the planet Earth which is telling you we don't have enough the capital the just. Here's what I like to think about it.

Jeff

The credit pool is shrinking. You've got to increase the credit pool. How do you do that? QE start throwing money into into it. And so what does that do. It just turbo charges food fuel. Yeah. You know again I want to own I want to own the entire commodity index I want to I will only when I be really careful about is precious.

Jeff

Yes. So you want to own the industrial metals. And by the way, everybody's focus on what's coming out of the street. Let's think about what should be coming in. Box I we've lost box I there's Albert shut down the big alley smelter because they don't have access to the box. Right. So you want to own industrial metals, food and and and energy and oil.

Jeff

The the one I be careful is precious because how are you going to fund all of this? You're going to have to fund it. You know, Poland just came out this morning, says they're going to sell down some of their gold reserves to pay for all of this. So that's the one I would be cautious on. Again, I'm not a permeable on everything.

Jeff

I'm telling you to be cautious on, on gold. But the other ones I don't see how they continue to go up. So I think there's a high probability that you end up, you know, the, you know, you want to BQ. You see, actually, the way I think about gold, you want to be short until you see the QE and the peak.

Jeff

That's what happened in September or not in Covid was you ground to a halt. You had a you use had a liquidity problem and then they injected the QE and then you're off to the races. I think you could see a very similar dynamic. I know we're now, you know, putting the cart before the horse into talking down that saline, but I think this will come up onto us so fast we won't know it hit us.

Jeff

So we knew about Covid and, you know, let's call it January 15th, January 20th. And it was actually here in the Or actually I was in the US all the week in the US the anniversary is March 11th. So it was this week. And so it took about two months before we had to hate it here. And I wouldn't be surprised.

Jeff

It's the same thing actually, it was March 23rd. I remember that day when we injected the liquidity into the system and gold went straight up. So that's, you know, if you think about it. But I, I can't believe we're talking about it going that far, but I don't see it happening. You listen to everybody else in the financial markets oil markets and everything okay.

Jeff

They're not talking as serious as we are going down to the QE. But I think you're absolutely right. You cut rates, you inject the QE because you've lost credit.

Amrita

That I can't even imagine what that does to oil. Right. Because we are here sitting and talking about oil shouldn't be 100 like hundreds low for what fundamentally it should be on top of that if you inject QE. But again, it's not a pretty picture for the world economy. And that's my biggest worry is that how does this kind of play out.

Amrita

But okay so tell me this. Where do you see oil going given what we've just talked about. Like could it just go to a silly number like we've seen 148 can go to 100?

Jeff

I oh, I don't want to put a number on it for the fact it's. They were trying to force me on blueberry this week. Yeah. And I go, you know, buckle your seatbelt and hang on for the ride, get long. And, you know, I think the that's what I want to say when, when to get out. You're going to get out when you start to see movement in, in what Trump's doing.

Jeff

But the thing about it is you want structures that are just long ball. That goes my point, right? Well, wait, I'm just Biden rolling front man strategy. The stuff you and I used to sell 15 years. Really simple. Liberate 2 to 1 and just buckle your seatbelt because this thing is not going away. It's going to be it's going to be like the 70s.

Jeff

And by the way, I don't know if you've seen the pictures. I everybody of you run inflation this time around versus inflation in the 70s. It looks identical. We're going to the 79 spike. And then you had the Iran Iraq war after that. It just kept going and going and going. So you didn't want to get short until 85, 86.

Jeff

And then it was, you know, and I think it's the dynamic. Does it get it looked like silver probably. Yeah. Look. Oh you know you know what happened I one thing I want to get your view on is what happened on Monday. It was there the end was there intervention because you had a situation where, WTI was trading above.

Jeff

Brant sure looks like to me there was somebody selling that.

Amrita

So, I mean, look, we can never confirm there's been a lot of rumours, right, of US government intervention, which they've obviously officially denied. What I would say are quantity. They picked up some really weird block trades being put. We could see that in balance of 26 tenders for WTI. Like just one day was like an 11 million barrels equivalent of notional being sold.

Amrita

So yes, we have definitely seen some very weird trades. Look, for me, the biggest challenges that we've come into this, even when we were saying, look, this is not going to be like June 2025, don't underestimate, you know, that Iran's going to create some nuisance. Even we didn't expect this. I don't think anybody expected to be this. But now I think the problem is the US is running out of physical options.

Amrita

Right. They're talking about Jones Act and SPR. SPR is going to be nothing. Right. So then the question becomes what can they do to keep the price down. Right. Because you've talked about this as well. We know Trump has or is very sensitive to high oil prices. So I think that's where a lot of this is coming from.

Amrita

And yes, we've definitely seen I think part of this was also probably pre-selling ahead of the SPR. Right. But then the SPR happened and we rallied. Right. It didn't matter. But we've definitely picked up on some weird trading,

Jeff

Dynamic play with the, but your Jones act. Hey, I when I go pick up on that, I mean, isn't the next logical, point if they got rid of the Jones Act, they do export controls.

Amrita

Yeah. And that's the fear in the market, right? And this is something, if you are genuinely serious about inflation, the only thing you can control now is product prices, right? You say, okay, domestically we want low product prices. You kill off exports. The problem with the US is the way it's set up foreign. That helps the Gulf Coast.

Amrita

Pad one still requires imports to balance because I mean okay, so maybe you do it as a combination of Jones act plus an export ban. And then you resupply the US and then yes, you're doing the product export ban. But then imagine what happens to Europe, what happens to Latin America? I mean, the whole world is going to be on fire, and maybe the US gets insulated, but yes, it's I mean, we wouldn't rule it out.

Amrita

We don't think it's our base case right now. But if this thing keeps going on, absolutely. I can't imagine us saying, oh, that you can't. They'll never think about it. Of course you'll think about it.

Jeff

I think from an investment perspective, it means you do you want to be long, Brant? You don't want to mess with it. Exactly. You want it dangerous to be long. And you saw the CME president. Yeah. Yeah yeah. You're right that he was. That's why he's upset because of you know basically nobody wants to touch it by the way.

Jeff

It tells you the the let's just assume they were selling through the the ESF that exchange stabilization fund, the fact they were selling Brant. They're not worried about Brant or WTI because they're going to do export control.

Amrita

And I think I think that's the thing is that, even look at ARB hasn't gone up as much because everybody's worried about controls. Right. So anything which is very U.S exposed not going up as much. Anything else, which is rest of the world. So yeah. Final thoughts Jeff. Other than oil, other than pretty much every commodity but gold, what else?

Amrita

I mean, shorting airline stocks. What else is a good trade out there?

Jeff

One thing I would quite, quite be cautious about trading is the Beatles of the world. Smash it out of the park previously, because flows were not interrupted here, I would be really cautious about, you know, so, the, about the having the, you know, exposure to the, to the, you know, the trade houses, the ones that do the physical side there.

Jeff

But unfortunately, there's no macro funds left in the world. They have all been dismantled because of, you know, the dominance of the multi strats. But what you want is something that is just long vol and actually exposed to price volatility, not to volume volatility, which is what the trade houses are exposed to. And you want CEO somebody you can trade all of the different markets.

Jeff

So you get the, you know the different vets across all of it. And I think so you know when you look at you know, so I mean that was kind of my thought process to be long Glencore. You'd have both the yeah the trade and trade house. And you have the long copper which I really you know, the copper story by the way here is the last thought is, you know, renewables were born out of the heat.

Jeff

The, the energy crisis in 73. You want to be long, clean it actually, let's call it, instead of clean energy, secure energy. And, the secure energy of the white places. And what is the biggest pull on that? It's going to be copper is going to have to go into that. So and that was my thought process there.

Jeff

But I think in terms of on the, on the trading side, you know, the trade houses, they're going to they're facing disruption in volumes. So it's going to be tough for them. Unfortunately there is no macro. I actually I agree, if somebody point out this morning the the macro guys are, you know, Stan Druckenmiller, you know, Paul Tudor Jones, Lewis Bacon and you know, that's it.

Jeff

And those guys are the only ones left and, and they're all like in their mid 70s. But you know, it's that that's the world that's come back to us. Yeah. And you know, so getting that exposure I think is going to be the right way to deal with all of this.

Amrita

Oh thank you Jeff I'm sure we'll be dropping soon because and hopefully to be honest when we talk next us the situation has calmed down. Yeah. But at this point in time, it's not looking particularly positive on that front. Thanks. Thanks for joining.

Jeff

Thanks.