Oil at $100. Everything else is just reacting.

Transcript

Tom Brent crude just hit triple digits and the screens are bleeding red, buddy.

Marie Look, it is July twenty-fourth, twenty-six, and you are listening to the London Edition of Investment Flash. I am Marie, joined by Tom and Gerald, and we are staring down a massive supply-side shock.

Gerald Yeah look, honestly, the Financial Times was sniffing around those Houthi supply risks three days ago, but the market only decided to care once the tankers actually got hit near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

Tom For real? I mean, the U-S Oil Fund jumped nearly six percent in the last session — it is up over one hundred percent year to date!

Marie Wait — wait a second, Tom. The oil spike is the headline, but the real story is that the S&P five hundred fell over one percent while bonds also dropped. That is a classic stagflationary impulse.

Gerald Exactly.

Tom One hundred percent.

Marie Right — when you see the Energy ETF barely green while everything else is selling off, the market is telling you it is terrified of inflation crushing growth.

Gerald The thing is, investors are running for the exits in long-duration Treasuries too. The I-Shares twenty-plus year Treasury Bond ETF is at a fifty-two-week low.

Tom No way! Gerald, you have been calling for that bond doom-loop for months, you must be loving this.

Gerald Ha — fair enough, but even I will admit BlackRock is making a decent point here. They are saying these yields finally offer a solid buffer against further losses.

Marie I'm going to push back here. BlackRock’s yield buffer does not mean much if crude stays north of one hundred dollars and Trump keeps threatening massive attacks on Iran.

Tom Right, and that is why the V-I-X volatility index just spiked twelve percent to nearly nineteen. People are finally waking up to the risk.

Gerald Honestly, the V-I-X at nineteen is still pretty sleepy given we have tankers on fire and a potential tariff wall going up around sixty different countries.

Marie See, Gerald, this is what I mean — we are seeing an abrupt shift. Nikkei is reporting Trump is rebuilding a tariff wall with new rates on basically everyone, and the China ETF is already down thirteen percent year to date.

Tom No but that's exactly my point — if the trade war is back, we need to be in the names with real infrastructure. Did you guys see Intel?

Gerald Yeah look, they posted their fastest revenue growth in fifteen years because of AI data center demand. Even I can't find a way to make that sound bearish, though thirty percent below its fifty-two-week high is quite the 'value' play.

Tom Oh come on! It is a massive turnaround. And T-S-M-C is planning a ten percent price hike for twenty-twenty-seven. The demand is so high they are literally naming their price.

Marie Not so fast, buddy. JPMorgan is out with a note saying this split between the chip makers and the actual AI hyperscalers looks exactly like the late nineteen-nineties.

Gerald Right — and we all know how that ended for the guys building the fiber optic cables.

Marie Precisely. The Nasdaq one hundred ETF fell nearly two percent in the last session. If Nvidia and the Semiconductor ETF start losing their momentum, there is a lot of room to fall.

Tom Okay sure, but did you actually look at AMD? They are stepping up their server game to take on Nvidia. This is a multi-front buildup, not just one company.

Gerald Tom — Tom, that's the third time this month you’ve called a bottom on the semi-hardware rotation. You sound like those analysts who revise their price targets after the stock has already dropped fifty percent and call it a 'strategic update'.

Tom Hah — yeah, yeah, I know. I said that about semis last quarter too, but the fundamentals with Intel are real this time!

Marie Hold on, I want to talk about something that actually caught my eye in the Journal. The Port of Long Beach is looking at building its own nuclear reactor. Now THAT is a signal.

Tom Wait — wait a second, a port going nuclear? For real?

Marie Yes! They need the electricity for all that heavy infrastructure. It shows that nuclear demand is moving way beyond just data centers and Big Tech.

Gerald The thing is, uranium miners have been absolutely crushed lately. The Uranium Miners ETF is down about fifteen percent this year and forty percent off its highs.

Marie Look, that is exactly why it is interesting. The market has not priced this new source of demand at all. If ports start following the data center playbook, Cameco and the miners look very undervalued.

Tom Totally.

Gerald Spot on.

Marie Nailed it.

Tom I’m actually with you on that one, Marie. It’s like Josh Brown was saying on C-N-B-C — the market is broadening out. He is looking at Industrials and Insurance, not just the Magnificent Seven.

Gerald Alright, but insurance stocks near fifty-two-week highs while the world is catching fire? That feels like a crowded room to me.

Tom Maybe, but the Industrials ETF was up nearly two percent in the last session. People are looking for safety in companies that actually make things.

Gerald Fair enough. If you want a real contrarian play though, look at IBM. Their CEO told the Journal he isn't worried about the tech selloff because they are focused on mainframes and quantum computing, not the AI hype cycle.

Marie IBM is down almost thirty percent year to date, Gerald. That is a lot of 'non-worrying' for the shareholders.

Gerald Pff, okay, but it is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of about sixteen. Compare that to the rest of tech. If quantum starts to get any real traction, that is a massive re-rating candidate.

Tom I don't know, buddy. Quantum feels like it is always 'five years away'. I’d rather stick with what’s working, like that Energy ETF call from yesterday's show — that was a winner.

Marie Right, and let's not forget the yen. Nikkei is saying U-S fund managers are still shying away from it even though it is significantly undervalued. That is a coiled spring if I ever saw one.

Gerald Yeah look, the positioning is so one-sided that any shift from the Bank of Japan or even a risk-off move from these tariffs could force a massive snapback.

Marie Honestly, the missing piece today is the dollar. With oil spiking and sixty countries facing new tariffs, you’d expect the dollar index to be screaming higher, but it’s remarkably quiet.

Tom No but that's exactly my point! If the dollar hasn't moved yet, the real pain for emerging markets hasn't even started. We should be watching for a catch-up trade there.

Gerald Look mate, as always, none of this is investment advice. We are just three people looking at the same screens as you, trying to make sense of the chaos.

Marie So to wrap it up: we have a stagflationary shock with oil at one hundred, a V-I-X that is finally waking up, and a massive split in the AI trade between record growth and bubble warnings.

Tom And don't forget the nuclear ports! That's my favorite take of the day.

Gerald Of course it is. You probably already have a 'Nuclear Port' T-shirt on order.

Tom Ha — maybe! If you're finding this useful, hit follow on Spotify or check out investmentflash.com for the full digest with all the charts.

Marie We are done for the morning. We will be back with the New York Edition, later today at nine a.m. New York time.

Gerald Alright, see you then.

Tom Catch you later, buddy!