TACO's dead; Iran is the day's live risk.

Transcript

Tom Morning, everyone — it's Friday, and the oil market just ripped the 'TACO trade' apart. If you're still buying every Iran dip, buddy, we need to talk.

Marie It's Friday, September eighteenth, twenty twenty-six — New York Edition. I'm Marie, with Tom and Gerald, and we're breaking down a tape that's splitting into two markets: the headline succession story and the parts that are actually moving.

Tom And Gerald — yesterday you were watching long-duration Treasuries, saying 'no floor yet.' That call aged like fine wine, my friend.

Gerald Yeah look, the bond market doesn't need a floor when Tokyo's breaking the carry trade. But let's not turn my cautious Treasury watch into a victory lap — I'm still waiting for the actual bottom.

Marie Fair enough. Let's start with the live risk: Oil and Iran. Tom, you've been the TACO cheerleader — what changed?

Tom The TACO trade — that's Trump Always Comes Out, the buy-the-dip on every Iran threat — is officially DEAD. MarketWatch named it, and September broke the pattern. Iran is shifting exports from ships to trucks through Turkey. That's adaptation, not surrender.

Gerald Yeah, and here's the thing: the naval blockade is actually biting. FT Markets says the land route is slower and pricier, which means Iran is paying more to move the same barrel. The crowd still positioned for a climbdown is the risk — if the fold doesn't come, oil, energy equities, and land-route hubs all reprice.

Marie No but that's exactly my point — the oil move is already crowded. US Oil Fund is up one hundred twenty-five percent year to date and only five percent below its high. The easy geopolitical premium is in the tape. What's NOT priced is the option value of escalation, which is why we like the laggards, not the leaders.

Tom Totally. And the laggards are where it gets fun — Turkey ETF drew a four-point-two percent bid last session and still trades fourteen percent below its high. Turkey becomes the land-route transit hub for Iranian crude.

Gerald Of course you'd find the fun in a geopolitical supply chain reroute. But to be fair, the tanker short is the cleaner expression: Frontline up one hundred sixty-two percent year to date, two percent below its high — if Iranian oil goes overland, seaborne tonne-miles fall and tanker rates hit.

Marie Hold on, Gerald — Frontline at two percent below its high with no cushion? That's not a short, that's a dare. The trade is already priced for perfection on seaborne volumes.

Tom Pff, okay, Marie's right. But the TACO break means we can't just buy the dip anymore. We need to be selective.

Gerald Alright, moving to Glencore — and this one's a credit story, not just a commodity book. FT Markets and FT Companies both have Glencore at the centre of the Radiant World collapse, a two-billion-dollar dispute.

Marie Wait — a two-billion-dollar dispute with a Singapore iron-ore trader, and Radiant claims Glencore financed its rise before the relationship soured. That's trade-finance contagion into high yield, not an isolated trade loss.

Tom Glencore fell three-point-one percent last session and sits twenty-one percent below its high. The credit-loss question is not fully priced.

Gerald Exactly. And the high yield ETF is only three percent below its fifty-two-week high but barely one percent above its low — meaning there's no cushion if trade-finance losses spread. This is the new Wall Street credit debacle, and the market's asleep.

Tom That's the gap.

Marie And it's huge.

Gerald Massive, honestly.

Marie See, THIS is what I mean — we've had three FT pieces on insurance-linked private credit this week, and the market treats Apollo and KKR as rate-cycle casualties, not liquidity mismatch problems.

Tom But Marie, the structured-financing angle is a direct tailwind for Blackstone — they're the largest secondaries and insurance-linked fundraising machine, and they're thirty-four percent below their high.

Gerald Yeah look, FT runs three adjacent pieces: liquidity risk in annuity books, Mark Walter moving insurance assets, and private equity using structured financing to lure insurance billions. The split is real — near-term fundraising tailwind versus a coming regulatory and liquidity reckoning.

Marie That's the gap. Apollo is eighteen percent below its high, KKR thirty-five percent below, and no one is pricing a liquidity mismatch. If FT's reporting is right, that's the trade.

Tom Exactly.

Gerald One hundred percent.

Marie That's the whole story.

Tom Only Gerald could turn a chip rally into a P-E warning, but speaking of chips — Forge Nano's CEO says the US toolmaker will anchor production in Taiwan, not the US. That's a contrarian reshoring signal.

Gerald Right, and it reinforces Taiwan's cluster. TSMC sits ten percent below its fifty-two-week high despite thirty-four-point-six percent year-to-date gains. So there's still room.

Marie And the semiconductor ETF popped three-point-four percent last session, up sixty-five-point-five percent year to date, but still twenty-one percent below its high. The capex cycle has legs.

Tom Totally. Chips aren't the only laggard — European gas storage is at sixty-nine percent versus over eighty percent a year ago. EQT has fallen six-point-nine percent over the week and trades twenty-six percent below its fifty-two-week high.

Gerald The El Niño binary is the thing, though. A mild winter eases the squeeze, a cold one forces restocking at high prices. FT Companies says the storage deficit puts a floor under European and global LNG prices.

Marie But the natural gas fund is up only one-point-six percent on the week and thirty-nine percent below its high — so wait for El Niño to resolve before touching the direct expression.

Tom Greek banks, though — Bloomberg says the four largest lenders rejoin Europe's top benchmark on Monday, forcing passive funds to buy. That's a mechanical bid.

Gerald Ah yes, the index inclusion trade — well telegraphed, but it still works until the close. Greece ETF has three percent left to its fifty-two-week high, and National Bank of Greece is a direct forced-flow recipient.

Marie And the contrarian pitch in cybersecurity: one MarketWatch analyst says Zscaler is the only name still able to post big gains after missing the sector's rally. Zscaler is down ten-point-five percent year to date while the cybersecurity ETF is up fifty-one-point-nine percent.

Tom Zscaler's up twenty percent in a week — that catch-up is already underway, so use a trailing stop, not fresh size.

Gerald An analyst saying one stock is the only candidate left is basically a dare to the other forty names in the index. Where's the price target? Where's the growth estimate?

Marie Ha — fair enough. But the underperformance gap was the whole pitch.

Tom European exchanges — FT argues Europe can attract US investors by consolidating into fewer, bigger markets. Euronext is the natural consolidator, trading six percent below its fifty-two-week high at seventeen-point-one times forward earnings.

Gerald Yeah, and London Stock Exchange is the competitive loser — twenty percent below its high, down seven-point-three percent year to date. The market already discounts the trouble.

Marie Venezuela gold — FT Markets reports a deal to move four billion dollars of gold from London to New York, anchoring the interim government's funding. Chevron is the cleanest equity beneficiary if that licence survives.

Tom Chevron sits three percent below its fifty-two-week high at fifteen-point-six times forward earnings — cheap optionality on Venezuela's oil flowing.

Gerald Alright, but the bear case on all this geopolitical re-rating: positioning is crowded on the bull side. US Oil Fund up one hundred twenty-five percent, Energy Select SPDR up forty-one percent and three percent off its high, gold flat on the week after a one-point-six-nine percent pop last session.

Marie Not so fast — if Trump folds again, the TACO unwind is violent. The crowd that bought every dip for six months is exactly the crowd that sells the first sign of de-escalation. A single climbdown tweet kills the oil thesis faster than any supply headline makes it.

Tom That's the most original take: Isabel Wang names the heuristic and dates its death. September twenty twenty-six broke the pattern.

Gerald The risk is not headline escalation — it's a crowded TACO crowd still positioned for a climbdown that no longer arrives. If the fold trade is dead, oil, gold, and volatility carry the repricing.

Marie And our view: don't chase oil highs. Buy the laggards — Turkey ETF, EQT, Chevron. Those aren't crowded. US Oil Fund and Energy Select SPDR already are.

Tom Exactly.

Gerald One hundred percent.

Marie That's the whole story.

Tom The option value of escalation isn't in the crowded leaders — it's in the land-route hubs, the gas deficit, and the licence optionality.

Gerald As always, none of this is investment advice. We're just three friends reading the tape.

Marie And on that note, Tom, remember when you said semis were cooked in Q2? Now you're cheering the capex cycle.

Tom Hey, I said that about semis last quarter too — I'm consistent in my whiplash, buddy.

Gerald Only Tom could turn a sell-off into a 'buy the laggard' story.

Marie That's the show, though — we find the constructive angle. If you're just finding us, hit follow on Spotify — or check investmentflash.com for the full digest with charts and sources.

Tom We're back tomorrow morning at ten a.m. London time for the Weekend Edition.

Gerald Until then, keep your TACO wrappers off the dip.

Marie Ha — nice. See you tomorrow, everyone.