We kick off this week with something new: the latest episode of "Finger on the Pulse", a fresh market chat recorded by myself and Mark Elzayed. A clean, punchy walkthrough of what’s moving, what’s breaking, and what’s quietly brewing beneath the surface.
And while we’re talking upgrades, the Investor Pulse website has just been fully refurbished: cleaner layout, easier navigation, and full access to notes, performance, and the sort of data that keeps investors from wandering into traffic.
Sun Bears, Welts, and the Unwritten Laws of Baseball
Now, onto the important stuff: the North Sydney Sun Bears are through to the grand final this weekend.
Yours truly stepped up for a pinch‑hit cameo, saw three pitches, and wore one flush on the leg. A proper welt - the kind that blooms like a bruise with ambition.
And of course, the sacred, unwritten rule of baseball applies: you never rub it. You take the pain, you take your base, and you pretend you didn’t just get stung by a 130 km/h leather‑wrapped meteor. Nothing rest and an ice cold Coors Light can’t fix
It’s a perfect metaphor for markets right now, especially oil.
Oil is absolutely gunning along and this feels like a generational crisis forming
Oil isn’t just firm. It isn’t just strong. It’s gunning along like it’s late for its own wedding, and the market is still treating it like background noise. But this isn’t noise.
This is the early tremor of something bigger — a structural, geopolitical, supply‑chain‑meets‑weather‑system‑meets‑fragility moment that future analysts will point to and say, “That was the start.”
If you want some stats let’s check on Charlie Bilello:
“The Crude Oil ETF spiked 33% over the last week, the biggest weekly gain in its history. This was a 6-sigma event, which (assuming a normal distribution) is only supposed to occur once every 4,039,906 years. So we shouldn't see another spike like this until the year 4041932.”
Markets Losing the Plot: the Pam Bondi moment
Speaking of markets and madness, someone put together a chart marking the exact moment Pam Bondi declared, with full celestial confidence, that “the Dow is over 50,000,” as if it was a compelling legal argument for not prosecuting anyone on the Epstein list.
The chart you provided tells the story beautifully: the Dow rolling over, momentum fading, and yet the political‑media circus insisting everything is fine because a round number flashed briefly on a screen.
It’s the perfect absurdist beat — the disconnect between what markets are actually doing and what people with microphones insist they’re doing.
The Weather is Turning, and Not in a Poetic Way
Now we pivot — cleanly, sharply — into something far more consequential.
This Weather West tweet lays out the emerging El Niño–driven weather stress that’s already hitting crops and will hit food prices next:
And here’s where it all becomes crucial: one‑third of the world’s fertiliser moves through the Strait of Hormuz.
So the chain looks like this:
- El Niño disrupts weather
- Weather disrupts crops
- Crops need fertiliser
- Fertiliser supply depends on a chokepoint
- The chokepoint is in a war‑adjacent zone
This is how food inflation brews: slowly, then suddenly.
But all is not lost in Hormuz — the free market has cowboys.
Despite all that, the Strait of Hormuz isn’t completely frozen. Why?
Because the free market, in its infinite and occasionally deranged wisdom, lets shipowners decide for themselves when the day rate is high enough to justify putting on a cowboy hat and Leroy Jenkinsing their way across a war zone.
Nothing captures that energy better than the FT Article over the weekend that used the word ‘buccaneer’ extensively — the perfect visual shorthand for “the price is right, saddle up”:
(Instagram link to the post visuals otherwise it’s a prohibitive paywall... in THIS economy!)
Leeeeeeroyyyyy Jeeeeenkiiiinssssssss...
It’s capitalism distilled:
Risk? Immense. Reward? Also immense.
Decision? “Punch it.”
A Possible Global Environmental Crisis is Unfolding this Morning
As if the weather‑fertiliser‑food chain weren’t enough, we now have this RadarHits tweet showing what may be the early signs of a global environmental wobble happening in real time:
The black cloud of acid rain is now moving east over Asia.
Pay attention for obvious reasons and reflect on it while you use your paper straw to save the environment.
Food, Energy, and the Uncomfortable Middle
Given everything above: oil strength, chokepoints, weather stress, environmental anomalies, the focus naturally shifts to food companies.
I’ve noted it clearly: we’re looking very closely at food‑related businesses, and as a default starting point, investors should take a look at the FOOD ETF.
It’s broad, it’s liquid, and it captures the theme without forcing anyone to pick single‑stock winners in a volatile space. It worked well for me during Covid, should do the same for me now.
And on the energy side?
We’re happy to stay long.
The structural case is intact. The geopolitical case is strengthening. The supply‑demand case is tightening. And the market still hasn’t fully priced the risk.
Energy and food, the two most basic inputs of civilisation, are where the real story is forming.
The Finger’s Final Word
This week’s Finger is a study in contrasts:
- Baseball welts and unwritten rules
- Oil ripping while commentators misread the room
- Politicians invoking the Dow like it’s a magic spell
- Weather systems tightening around global food supply
- Fertiliser flows depending on cowboy‑math risk‑taking
- Environmental anomalies flashing warning lights
- And investors quietly rotating toward food and energy
It’s all connected, and it’s all happening at once.
You don’t want to hear this but regardless of anything happening anywhere right now, food will get far more expensive.
Iran, Israel, and the US could have a peace summit right now and hug it out and food will still be massively expensive for the remainder of the year.
Act accordingly.
And that’s why we write the Finger.
