Gold, Banks, Uranium, And How To Spot “The” Market Bottom

All according to plan: GROY, BNKU, URA, ARKK, TSLA

Recent headlines relevant to my “one and done” themes:

Fed Admits Banks Suffered Massive Deposit Outflows Last Week

WW3 Fears Trigger American Panic-Buying Of Ammo, Prices Surge 39% In A Week

Global Natural Gas Supply Needs $7 Trillion Investment To Meet Demand

American Nurses Association Officially Recognizes Cannabis As A Formal Specialty Practice Area

Top Japanese Energy Trader Warns 'World Running Short Of LNG For Energy Transition' 

Ontario prepares to go big on nuclear, with demand for electricity poised to soar

EV Skeptic Toyota Chairman Says People Are 'Finally' Waking Up To Reality Of Electric Vehicles

Toyota's chairman and former CEO, Akio Toyoda, told reporters at an auto show in Japan this week that waning demand for electric vehicles (EV) is a sign that people are waking up to the reality that EVs aren't the silver bullet against the supposed ills of carbon emissions they're often made out to be.

"People are finally seeing reality" about EV technology, Mr. Toyoda told reporters

Ford Lost $62,016 For Every EV It Sold In 3Q F 0.00%↑

Iceberg Research: NuScale Power ( SMR 0.00%↑): A Fake Customer And A Major Contract In Peril Cast Doubt On NuScale’s Viability

Robert Bryce: Powering The Unplugged

Electricity matters because it is the ultimate poverty killer. No matter where you look, as electricity use has increased, so has economic growth. Having electricity does not guarantee wealth. But its absence almost always means poverty. Indeed, electricity and economic growth go hand in hand. Electricity spurs economic activity, and economic growth spurs electricity use. Westerners take electricity for granted. But nearly everything we touch—almost everything we read, eat, or wear—has in one way or another been electrified.

Policymakers must have a laser-like focus on electricity because hundreds of millions of people in developing countries, including Pakistan, South Africa, and Bangladesh, are suffering from increasing numbers of blackouts and shortages. Even energy-rich countries like Iraq are experiencing regular blackouts. Amidst this backdrop, global power demand is booming. Urbanization, economic growth, population growth, electric vehicles, and soaring use of air conditioning in countries like India—where air conditioner sales are growing by nearly 8% per year—are all fuelling the need for more electricity.

How much more power generation capacity will the world need?

CNBC.com: Tesla whistleblowers filed a complaint to the SEC in 2021, but the agency never interviewed them. Here’s what the complaint said

• In 2021, a Tesla employee and a tech industry researcher filed a whistleblower complaint to the SEC with concerns that Elon Musk’s car company may have violated securities law and flouted accounting standards.

• The complaint contained detailed allegations about Tesla’s financials and business practices, including that it improperly categorized repairs and had poor control over internal systems used to capture data that later rolled up to financial reports.

• The SEC assigned one person to look at one portion of the complaint, then closed that ticket a few months later, according to records. It never spoke to the whistleblowers nor followed up on their offers to look at more than 18,000 files detailing the allegations, they say.

For all the whining and excuses from “experts” about why markets have been selling off, I was adamant about it before recent news events supposedly spooked speculators worldwide. Regular readers of this substack know it. But how can that be?

Cycles of social mood precipitate the headlines; the wars, the waste, the crime waves, the corruption, the booms and the busts, not the other way around. It doesn’t rain because people are carrying umbrellas. Correlation is not causation.

When “a” market bottom occurs is unknowable, but “the” eventual long-term bottom will be as clear as the peak was.

Ignore the pundits, the charlatans, the commission-churners, and just know this: there’s been no sign of disorderly markets much less bear market capitulation - not this year, or last year… maybe not even next year - but by cycle’s end there will be.

By then Tesla TSLA 0.00%↑ should be well south of $50 and ARKK 0.00%↑ , which I’ve past described as “the ETF equivalent of a sewer”, will be below $10 if it still exists at all.

Funny thing, ARKK. It’s run by a long-only “genius” tech “investor” yet has somehow underperformed general markets by a huge margin during one of the greatest multi-year manias in history; ironically a mania mostly focused in tech.

A drunken monkey throwing darts at random tickers could’ve netted better results:

There’ll be headlines about ARKK suffering record outflows, or shuttering entirely, before the bear’s done mauling the suckers who fawn over the P.T. Barnums of a speculative circus while piling into obvious trash at the exact top:

They’ll be flat broke and answering margin calls at the bottom, unable to buy a thing.

Their folly lays the foundation of our fortune.

Meanwhile gold posted its 5th-highest weekly close in history, above the key $2000 mark.

I’ll add a 4th position in GROY 0.00%↑ when it’s back above $1.35

GROY closed the week at $1.30

Be sure to read or re-read Gold, GROY (and Dividends) Again for context.

If buying now, don’t worry about being late. It’s still very early. I added to my own gold allocations considerably the past week, having patiently waited years for this dream setup, and it feels great knowing I did so while moving against the herd.

Despite gold’s remarkable technical performance and the global economic and political backdrop, hedge and pension funds are very under-allocated to precious metals and internet activity related to gold is near a 5-year low:

Internet interest in gold

Gold will be far higher by the time the masses pile in.

Two URA 0.00%↑ positions were sold a few days before the recent peak. I remain super bullish on the uranium sector and will add positions when the timing’s right.

As people flee the banking sector, I’m looking forward to restoring the positions sold very profitably right at this summer’s peak.

BNKU 0.00%↑ is down a whopping 49% since those sells, and I added a 1/4 position the past week per my stated plan:

I’ll add 1/4 of a position for roughly every 20% drop.

+ 1/4 at $11.50

+ 1/4 at $9.25

+ 1/4 at $7.40

+1/4 at $5.93

By then I’d have a 2x position at avg. cost of $11.50 and will reassess.

BNKU finished the week at $10.44, a 3-year low.

If an actual bank panic occurs, gains on the other side of it will be absolutely fantastic - the kind of opportunity seen in this sector only once or twice in a lifetime - and I’m eager to add multiple more positions when the timing’s right.

Prepare now, to avoid any excuses.

And read Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, because all pigs are pigs and gold hates piggery in all its wasteful, fraudulent, corrupt, power-grabbing permutations.

Toronto Sun: Politicians always have lots to say about wildfires, except when arson charges laid

It’s an inconvenient truth that is not getting as much attention as plumes of smoke that filled the air and skylines of major cities like New York, Montreal and Toronto in June.

“We’re seeing more and more of these fires because of climate change,” Trudeau posted on June 7. “These fires are affecting everyday routines, lives and livelihoods, and our air quality. We’ll keep working – here at home and with partners around the world – to tackle climate change and address its impacts.”

But now Quebec police have charged a 37-year-old man with arson in connection with what the CBC reports as “numerous forest fires that burned earlier this summer in the province’s north.”