Recorded at 7pm EST on Sunday of the Labor Day Weekend.
On this “Unmissable Sunday Show”, the 🐿️ drops the latest “20-for-20” installment - this week it’s resources (energy and materials) and explains why today’s pitch is scarcity, capital discipline, debasement and sovereign resilience rather than a China demand shock. Plus why the DJP 0.00%↑ commodity ETN took nearly two decades just to break even after the 2008 sell-off.
The Show Notes (plus bonus extras at the end)
🐿️’s “20-for-20” and Resources
The latest Twenty for Twenty sector installment on resources (energy plus materials) was published Saturday
A hypothetical 2006 version would have been stacked with financials, energy, materials, dry bulk and housing during the China capex boom.
CRB spot index had an all-timer four-year run into the 2008 oil spike, but buyers of the DJP commodity ETN at its 2006 launch only broke even at the start of this year.
Product launches are a late-cycle signal: when ETFs or bank products arrive in a hot theme, the trade is usually over
Today’s resources pitch is different from 2006: a scarcity, capital discipline, debasement and sovereign resilience story rather than a China demand shock.
The resources sleeve in Twenty for Twenty will likely be well above the current MSCI ACWI 8.5% index weight.
Running resources through the mosaic of ten macro themes:
Valuation caution: Freeport-McMoRan’s forward EBITDA is around two standard deviations above its 20-year average; Southern Copper and peers show the same dynamic.
Glencore included as the wild card despite its coal business scoring poorly on the macro themes (thumb on the scale).
Copper futures show a crowded bullish tape on COT positioning (large and small specs heavily long, elevated open interest). But it’s still an awesome chart!
S&P data shows a 20-year famine in tier-one copper discoveries; recent big finds are in LATAM, Asia-Pac and Africa - i.e., not tier-one jurisdictions.
DCM (and AI earnings) Bubble (Minute 14)
Banner year for debt capital markets (DCM) bankers as 2026 is lining up to be the biggest issuance since the GFC (with an inflation caveat) - even if Mag 7 issuers are likely paying charity-level fees for market share.
Last year’s call that hyperscalers would blow out their balance sheets and free cash flow has played out in underperformance; Meta now trades at 9x next year’s EBITDA
Mag 7 has flipped to a negative correlation with momentum over the last four weeks, a dynamic only seen in “crash-ish” periods.
H/T Kevin Muir’s charts: strip out markups on big private AI holdings and much of the “earnings bubble” is mark-to-market
Xmas Tree of Death (Minute 18)
Benny has built a mathematical signature model for the “Christmas tree of death”: money and leverage crowd in, shorts step aside, then an air pocket. (e.g., US Steel 20 years ago, silver this January, Palantir last fall and Alcoa this year)
Kospi check-in: possibly a fifth wave. Korean regulators now require retail traders to pass a ‘driving-test’ equivalent before trading double or triple leveraged products - probably not a bad idea.
Flows: foreigners buying while locals got wiped out, with 3% of Korean account holders margin called in short order; echoes 1997 hot-money dynamics.
Similar in Japan : foreigners bullish, locals and corporate Japan wary of Takaichi’s reform promises (Charlie Brown football syndrome)
The only bid in Korea is buybacks: Samsung and SK Hynix are repurchasing stock they just issued. Hynix did a $26B ADR then a $1.5B buyback weeks later - a corporate finance head-scratcher!!
Google’s early-June equity raise read as tactically front-running the SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic raises; better to pull the Band-Aid off early on funding the capex cycle.
Commodity bear markets are dark places where no one will give you capital; cyclicals can only raise money when the ‘ducks are quacking’. Hynix’s buyback looks like stock-price management after a rapid drawdown (red flag?).
Mid-innings Xmas Tree ‘mechanics’: crash, stabilization, then beta decay if flows don’t re-accelerate; heavy supply sits above the right shoulder with 90%-plus momentum concentration, and nobody gets out at the top.
Bonus Extras
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