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The Quiet Bull Market Hiding Behind AI THE DAILY --- H.E.A.T. Torching Wall Street’s Obsolete Playbook. Delivered straight to your inbox 5 days a week. Subscribe Home Posts The Quiet Bull Market Hiding Behind AI The Quiet Bull Market Hiding Behind AI Dec 16, 2025 I’ve been a trader and investor for 44 years. I left Wall Street long ago—-once I understood that their obsolete advice is designed to profit them, not you. Today, my firm manages around $4 billion in ETFs, and I don’t answer to anybody. I tell the truth because trying to fool investors doesn’t help them, or me. In Daily --- H.E.A.T. , I show you how to Hedge against disaster, find your Edge, exploit Asymmetric opportunities, and ride major Themes before Wall Street catches on. ❝ I’m hosting a webinar entitled “Why Covered Call ETFs Suck and What to Do Instead” (More Info Below) January 15 2-3pm. Sign Up Here Table of Contents --- H.E.A.T.--Commodities The Quiet Bull Market Hiding Behind AI Why Commodities Actually Belong in a Portfolio The Natural Gas Angle: AI Runs on Molecules, Not M … How I’d Think About Owning Commodities (Without Bl … 1. Direct commodity exposure (futures‑based ETFs) 2. Resource equities (producers, miners, royalty c … 3. “Picks & shovels” / infrastructure Winners, Watchlist, Losers Likely Winners (structural, not just cyclical) Watchlist (big upside, more path risk) Losers / Danger Zones Takeaways --- News vs. Noise: What’s Moving Markets Today Has the Market Finally Started Asking “Will AI Pay … --- A Stock I’m Watching --- In Case You Missed It Why Covered Call ETFs Suck-And What To Do Instead --- H.E.A.T. The Quiet Bull Market Hiding Behind AI While everyone is staring at AI models and magazine covers, the smart money is sneaking into something much older and dirtier: physical commodities. The FT just laid out what’s happening: multi‑manager hedge funds (Balyasny, Jain Global, Qube), quant shops (Jane Street), and giants like Citadel are all expanding into physical oil, gas and power – pipelines, storage caverns, grid‑scale batteries, transport rights. Not just futures, but the actual molecules and electrons. Hedge funds pile into commodities in search of fresh source of returns Funds such as Balyasny, Jain Global and Qube are expanding operations to allow them to trade underlying markets www.ft.com/content/598c3bfc-008c-438f-837c-f7ec73a993f6 Why? Because if you sit inside the logistics – you own storage, transport, real‑time flow data – you see the economy before the macro data hits the tape. That’s why one manager called it an “information gold rush.” And it’s why Citadel’s been buying gas fields in Louisiana and Texas and an energy trader in Germany: they want the optionality and the intel that come from controlling the pipes. This is the part most equity tourists miss: when world‑scale capital deliberately moves into an asset class with finite supply and real‑world bottlenecks, it usually isn’t because they’re bored. It’s because the regime has changed. Post‑Covid “run it hot” fiscal (deficits ~6% of GDP, and now QE has quietly restarted via T‑bill buying). AI + electrification driving structural demand for gas, copper, power gear. Under‑investment in old‑school resource capacity for a full decade. Commodities are where those three forces intersect. Why Commodities Actually Belong in a Portfolio Strip the story away and look at the math: Over the long run, broad commodity futures have shown low or even negative correlation to both stocks and bonds, and they tend to shine in inflationary or “stagflation‑ish” regimes. CFA Institute Daily Browse+1 Historically, in big inflation spikes (1970s, early 2000s, post‑2020), commodity indices like GSCI/BCOM have delivered strong real returns when equities and bonds struggled. Graham Capital Management They’re not a growth engine like equities. Spot commodities, in isolation, are basically “inflation + noise” over long horizons. But they are one of the only liquid asset classes that reliably like the same things your tech and bond holdings hate (higher inflation, higher real rates, supply shocks, war, etc.). Right now we’re in a bizarre mix: Central banks cutting with inflation still above target. Governments running fiscal policy like it’s permanent wartime. AI and data centers quietly turning electrons into the new barrel of oil. That’s exactly the kind of backdrop where commodities stop being a trade and start being portfolio plumbing . The Natural Gas Angle: AI Runs on Molecules, Not Magic TD Cowen recently did a report on natural gas, which puts some numbers around what AI + electrification actually mean: They see US data centers adding ~6+ Bcf/d of gas demand by 2030 on top of LNG exports and industrial demand. Their deck has Henry Hub averaging >$4/mcf long‑term and around $5 in 2026 , with E&Ps still screening at very high free‑cash‑flow yields at those prices. a16e8cfe-a263-4369-9d83-568c85e… Their preferred names in that report – AR, EQT, EXE, GPOR – are basically “levered AI” plays without looking like AI on a screen: balance sheets mostly repaired, drilling discipline enforced by scarred management teams, and structurally tighter gas markets if AI/data‑center build‑out and LNG stay on track. The punchline: AI doesn’t just mint Nvidia. It quietly mints cash for whoever owns the marginal BTU. How I’d Think About Owning Commodities (Without Blowing Yourself Up) There are three main ways to get exposure. All have trade‑offs. 1. Direct commodity exposure (futures‑based ETFs) Pros Cleanest inflation/commodity bet. Broad baskets (BCOM/GSCI‑type ETFs) give you energy + metals + ag in one ticket. Single‑commodity products (gold, crude, nat gas) let you express a specific thesis. Cons You’re married to term structure : contango/backwardation can help or hurt via roll yield. (USO/UNG are the classic examples of how painful bad roll structure can be.) No internal growth – you’re just riding price swings. Use case: strategic inflation hedge (broad basket) + tactical trades in specific commodities when the supply/demand picture is screamingly clear (e.g., copper deficits, nat gas re‑rating, etc.). 2. Resource equities (producers, miners, royalty companies) Pros Real businesses with cash flows and operating leverage to the commodity price. Better long‑term return potential than spot commodities if management isn’t lighting money on fire. Dividends, buybacks, and M&A as additional alpha sources. Cons They add back some equity beta (correlation to broad markets). You pick up idiosyncratic risks: political, ESG, cost blowouts, dumb M&A. Use case: core way to express a secular commodity view . If you’re structurally bullish on gas, copper, gold, etc., owning the quality operators usually beats rolling futures forever. 3. “Picks & shovels” / infrastructure Think: midstream pipes, LNG exporters, power producers, grid equipment (transformers, HV gear), shipping, commodity trading houses. More stable cash flows. Often benefit from volumes and volatility, not just flat price level. Many of the pure commodity traders are private (Trafigura, Vitol, Gunvor), but you can get at some of this via listed names (Glencore, big pipeline C‑corps/MLPs, European utilities, etc.). Use case: lower‑beta complement to producers, especially if you want yield + inflation linkage. If I were sketching a commodities sleeve in a macro book, I’d think in terms of a barbell : One side: core real‑asset hedge – broad commodity ETF + gold. Other side: high‑conviction producers & picks/shovels in the constraints I believe (gas, copper, select uranium, etc.). Size and specifics obviously depend on mandate and risk tolerance. Winners, Watchlist, Losers Not “recommendations,” but this is how I’d bucket the space. Likely Winners (structural, not just cyclical) 1. Nat‑gas‑levered E&Ps with discipline Names TD Cowen flagged – AR, EQT, EXE, GPOR – are basically “AI power” proxies: their economics improve if data‑center and LNG gas burn play out the way the deck projects. Key traits: low cost, repaired balance sheets, management actually returning capital instead of panic‑drilling at $3 gas. 2. Copper & base‑metal miners Grid expansion, EVs, and AI data centers are all copper hogs: Large, diversified miners: RIO, BHP, FCX, SCCO as examples. The structural story: global copper production has only crept higher over the last decade while we lay out plans that assume massive future supply – for AI data centers, grid rebuilds, and war‑driven reconstruction. These names already started outperforming the Mag7 in 2025 – that’s the market quietly repricing who really benefits from “electrify everything.” Copper could hit 'stratospheric new highs' as hoarding of the metal in U.S. continues Spot prices of the red metal hit another high on Friday at $11,816 per ton on the London Metals Exchange, with 3-month futures closing at $11,515. www.cnbc.com/2025/12/15/copper-prices-could-hit-new-highs-as-traders-rush-metal-into-the-us.html 3. Quality gold/silver miners and royalty/streaming Gold has already done its job through the real‑yield and war scares; the move in the miners has been even bigger because they were bombed out. Focus on: low all‑in sustaining costs, clean balance sheets, and capital discipline (fewer empire‑building acquisitions, more buybacks/dividends). Royalties/streamers (e.g., Franco‑Nevada / Wheaton‑type models) are “toll roads” on the sector with less operating risk. In a world of financial repression (negative real returns on cash/bonds) and fiscal insanity, monetary metals + miners are basically your insurance policy. 4. Energy infrastructure & power gear Even if you never buy a barrel or an Mcf, the AI and electrification boom still has to flow through: LNG exporters and midstream pipelines moving the molecules. Grid contractors and equipment makers (transmission build‑out, transformers, HVDC, switchgear, data‑center power/cooling). This stuff is less sexy than a copper junior, but the cash‑flow durability can be much higher. Watchlist (big upside, more path risk) Uranium and nuclear fuel chain – deeply cyclical, already had a huge run, but if nuclear keeps getting repositioned as “AI‑safe baseload,” the next leg higher will be driven more by policy than price. Timing‑sensitive. Battery metals (lithium, nickel, graphite) – oversupplied in the short term after the EV hangover, but long‑term demand is still there. Good hunting ground after forced sellers/CapEx cuts. Ags and fertilizers – geopolitics + weather can create absurd squeezes, but structurally trickier than energy/metals. Losers / Danger Zones Highly levered, high‑cost producers that only make money at the top‑tick price deck. When capital costs rise, these are the first casualties. Commodity ETFs with structurally awful roll mechanics – you can be right on spot and still bleed in futures‑based products if you don’t understand the curve. “Tourist” leverage in physical markets – the FT piece is a reminder that we’ve seen this movie before (Amaranth). When hedge funds push deep into physical logistics without the balance sheet or risk culture of a Vitol or Trafigura, somebody eventually blows up. You don’t want to be the last LP in that fund. Takeaways AI might be the narrative, but commodities are the plumbing. GPUs don’t work without gas, copper, and massive grid hardware. That’s where the cash will quietly accrue. Hedge funds piling into physical energy and power is a signal , not a curiosity. They want the information edge and the optionality that come from controlling real assets. From a portfolio perspective, commodities are one of the few true diversifiers left – they historically deliver when inflation is messy and real yields are rising, exactly the environment that stresses both tech multiples and long bonds. CFA Institute Daily Browse+1 The right way to own them is a mix of “pure” and “embedded.” Some exposure via broad commodity/gold ETFs for regime hedging… plus targeted stakes in high‑quality resource equities and infrastructure that sit at the bottlenecks. --- News vs. Noise: What’s Moving Markets Today Has the Market Finally Started Asking “Will AI Pay for Itself?” The selloff in data‑center and AI‑infrastructure names isn’t about one Oracle print or one Broadcom call – it’s about the market finally asking the only question that matters: does this AI build‑out actually earn its cost of capital? Oracle lit the match: weaker revenue, yet another step‑function higher in AI data‑center capex, and fresh headlines about OpenAI‑related delays. Broadcom followed with a “great” AI sales number, but admitted mix pressure and structurally lower margins on custom accelerators. Layer on a steady drumbeat of “AI bubble” notes from the Street and suddenly the trade flipped: instead of “whoever spends the most on GPUs wins,” it’s “show me sustainable free cash flow from all these bit barns.” That’s why anything tied to AI data centers – GPUs, switches, DC REITs, even GPU‑cloud tenants like CoreWeave – traded like a funding source. The new risk the market is pricing: tenant risk . If hyperscalers slow, or if over‑levered AI clouds miss targets, the economics of multi‑billion‑dollar campuses and long‑duration leases get a lot uglier, very fast. But that’s only half the story. Underneath the de‑risking, the strategic logic for AI capex hasn’t changed . The hyperscalers are basically rerunning Amazon’s late‑’90s / early‑2000s playbook: front‑load infrastructure, accept ugly near‑term optics, and grab pole position in a winner‑take‑most market. The difference now is that public markets are less forgiving about who they let play that game. Microsoft, Google, Meta and friends can fund the race out of massive free cash flow; Oracle‑style balance‑sheet leverage and “build it and hope” models are getting repriced. That’s why Thursday’s Micron (MU) report actually matters: MU sits on the component side of AI (HBM/DRAM), where capex is directly matched to visible demand and pricing, not a speculative cloud platform. If HBM stays tight and MU prints positive FCF with record revenue, it supports the “AI infrastructure is real, just be selective about exposure” thesis – and it widens the gap between self‑funded toll‑collectors and debt‑funded AI tourists . Takeaways The AI theme isn’t dead – the “AI at any price” trade is. Markets are rotating from “whoever shouts AI loudest wins” to “who can fund this build‑out and earn double‑digit returns on it?” Expect continued pressure on levered infra plays and GPU clouds with concentrated tenant risk. Differentiate capex types. Oracle/AVGO are being judged on platform ROIC and balance‑sheet strain; Micron’s AI capex is tied directly to chips that sell into a tight market (HBM, high‑density DRAM). That’s a very different risk profile. Data‑center REITs and infra are now in a “prove it” phase. Over‑earning on development spreads and lease‑up is no longer assumed. Tenant quality, contract structure, and balance‑sheet strength matter more than ever. Positioning: tilt to self‑funders. Favor hyperscalers and component vendors that can internally finance AI growth, and treat heavily levered AI infra names as trading vehicles, not core holdings. The theme is intact – the market is just starting to care about math again. --- A Stock I’m Watching Today’s stock is Rockwell Automation (ROK)…. Rockwell Automation (ROK) is near the top of my “physical AI” watch list because it’s one of the purest ways to play autonomous factories rather than just data centers. Rockwell already owns the control layer in a lot of plants (drives, PLCs, safety systems), but the real torque is in the growing software stack—FactoryTalk, Plex MES, and new AI modules like LogixAI/VisionAI—that sit on top of that installed base and turn dumb machinery into self‑optimizing production lines. As U.S. and Europe lean into reshoring, robotics, and energy‑efficient manufacturing, Rockwell effectively gets paid every time a plant adds sensors, robots, or AI‑driven quality and throughput tools, with rising recurring software and services tilting the model toward higher margins and stickier revenue. The main risk is classic industrial cyclicality and a valuation that already bakes in a lot of this story, so for now I’d frame ROK as a “buy the air pocket” candidate: I want it ready on the pad for any macro scare or capex wobble that lets us own a strategic automation franchise at a more asymmetric entry. --- In Case You Missed It These Trump bets boomed. Now they’re huge busts | CNN Business Donald Trump’s return to the White House set off a gold rush on Wall Street and in the crypto world. www.cnn.com/2025/12/15/business/trump-stocks-bitcoin-crypto?cid=external-feeds_iluminar_google ❝ The Select STOXX Europe Aerospace & Defense ETF, a US-listed fund launched by Tuttle that invests in European defense companies, is up more than 70% so far this year. Tuttle said the European defense contractors were “such an under-loved trade” prior to the election but the ETF received $1 billion of inflows shortly after Trump won. How Else I Can Help You Beat Wall Street at Its Own Game Inside --- H.E.A.T. is our monthly webinar series, sign up for this month’s webinar below…. Why Covered Call ETFs Suck-And What To Do Instead Thursday January 15, 2-3PM EST Covered call ETFs are everywhere — and everyone thinks they’ve found a “safe” way to collect yield in a sideways market. The truth? Most of them suck. They cap your upside, mislead investors with “yield” that’s really your own money coming back , and often trail just owning the stock by a mile. Join me for a brutally honest breakdown of how these funds actually work — and what you should be doing instead. 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