Sunday, July 26th, 2026

Laramie, Wyoming

By Dan Denning

You want to know something that didn’t make the news last week? The heads of Private Credit at BlackRock and Blackstone both resigned. For separate and personal reasons, of course. And it may not mean anything. But those are a couple of interesting ‘dots’ that may be connected. Why?

Cast your mind back to the to the long hot summer of 2007. The Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies fund was in trouble. The fund was packed with mortgage backed securities and collateralized debt obligations—heaps and heaps of housing-based debt. Only problem? The fund, Bear Stearns said, had almost no remaining value left.

Then, a few weeks later, another Bear Stearns fund—the High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund also effectively went to zero. Two funds. Chock full of debt, one full of leverage. Early warning signs.

Twelve months later, the S&P 5000 was down 18.7% and the Dow Jones Industrial Index was down 18.1%. Twenty four months later, the S&P 500 was down 39.3% and the Dow 37.4%. The Big Loss had arrived.

This is not to say that Private Credit is the new subprime. But it was a little concerning last week when several investment banks floated the idea of ‘wrapping’ private credit on their books into securities that could be sold to investors as if they were investment-grade bonds. Because that worked so well for retail investors last time around.

For our paying subscribers, we’ve recently incorporated credit spreads as one of five Pre Crash Indicators to follow. These are market-based signals that may trigger a mean-reverting correction in stocks (all of the valuation metrics we follow are in the 97th percentile or greater based on historical data…meaning US stocks have never been so over-valued).

I ran the chart above this morning just for fun. It’s an exchanged traded fund with a twist. It tracks the Markitt iBoxx Liquid High Yield Index (basically high yield corporate bonds). But the ETF is 2x, meaning it aims to double the performance of the underlying index (in either direction). It does so using exotic financial instruments and derivatives.

It’s not a widely traded or terribly liquid ETF. But I wanted to go past the usual suspects (HYG, JNK) to see if there are any earlier outlier signs that also suggest all may not be well in the world of private credit and leverage. UJB has been bobbing along at the top of a channel and recently traded down to its 200-day moving average.

Geopolitical events get all the airtime. For example, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is down to around 311 million barrels. News reports this weekend are that Iran rejected several cease fire offers from the Trump administration. No deal.

The reports speculated that the Mullahs want to see what happens when the SPR hits or exceeds its ‘operational’ threshold of 300 million barrels (about two or three weeks of drawdowns, at this pace). The Mullahs think they’ll get a better deal if oil is at $120/barrel, the Strait of Hormuz is still closed, no traffic is moving through Bab al-Mandeb on the Red Sea, and the SPR is at its lowest level since 1983.

Bab al-Mandeb apparently means ‘Gate of Tears’ in Arabic. Like in the summer of 2007, we may have passed through that gate this week in the credit markets. And when the credit market weeps, the stock market follows. Does the Fed know all this?

We’ll find out later this week when it meets. In the meantime, enjoy all our best research published this week at BPR.

Until tomorrow,

Dan

P.S. ‘Real’ interest rates are barely positive, meaning monetary policy is not currently ‘hawkish’. You get the ‘real’ rate of inflation by substacting the year-over-year rate of change in CPI from the Fed Funds target rate.

As Investment Director Tom Dyson pointed out earlier in the week, war is inflationary. It’s hard to imagine that with oil at $90/barrel the Fed would raise interest rates this week, though. Why?

That would raise ‘real’ interest rates and put a shock through capital markets already twitchy about private credit and valuations. The Fed never makes mistakes, of course.

Laramie, Wyoming

By Dan Denning

What’s going to be exhausted first: the barrels, the ballistic missiles, or the bombs?

In our regular communications with paying subscribers, we’ve noted some artificial and some physical deadlines that might determine how long this military operation in Iran may last.

The artificial deadlines are easy to skip. The War Powers Act authorizes the President to initiate military action and pursue it for 60 days without Congressional approval. He can then extend the operation for another 30 days before having to ask permission from lawmakers to continue.

All of that already happened once. The President notified Congress of operations against Iran on March 2nd. Then in late April/early May he said the ‘ceasefire’ effectively terminated hostilities. That appears to be a loophole that resets the statutory clock.

Accordingly, when the bombs began to fall again last week, it was not a continuation of the old war…but the beginning of a new one! The President has 60 days to conduct affairs, then another 30 to extend them, before Congress is required to approve the war that is not a war.

Or we could have another ‘ceasefire.’

Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Forever war. The real physical limit may have a lot to do with the chart below.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is about three weeks away from reaching its ‘operational limit’ for further drawdowns. The Trump Administration has been pumping out nearly 5.5 million barrels of oil from the SPR per week since the war began. It was a bit less last week, at 2.99 million barrels.

Under 300 million barrels—a level that would be reached in about three weeks at the average rate—there’s no telling how well the structure of the salt caverns in Louisiana that store the oil would hold up. By law, the statutory minimum for the SPR is 252 million barrels. Yet the Department of Energy says that in practice, the reserve could be drawn down to just 70 million barrels if necessary.

The clock is ticking on regular SPR releases. There are also the ‘known unknowns.’ How many ballistic missiles or ballistic missile launchers does Iran still have? How many smart bombs and bunker busters does the US have? Will either of them run out soon?

We’ll find out more this week. In the meantime, please enjoy the summary below of all the research we published last week at BPR.

Until tomorrow,

Dan

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Sunday, June 28th, 2026

Laramie, Wyoming

Cruising down over Ontario, and then across Minnesota and parts of North Dakota and Wyoming into Denver yesterday, I thought about the first half of the year and the map above. Markets are cruising into the mid-point of the year and likely to be quiet this week in the build up to America’s big 250th birthday bash on Saturday, July 4th. Of course markets are under no obligation to take a vacation, so we’ll see.

The map above shows a geographical oddity. It’s called North Two Ocean Creek, here in Wyoming’s Teton Wilderess. It sits at Two Ocean Pass on the Continental Divide, 8,200 feet above sea level. As if there were a silent Moses with his staff, the waters part at the pass and head in different directions to different geographies and destinies.

The Atlantic side of the creek heads north and east to the Yellowstone, Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers for almost 3,500 miles. Then it hits the Gulf of America/Mexico. The Pacific side of the creek heads south and West to the Snake and Columbia rivers, before reaching the mighty Pacific.

Here’s the inflation-adjusted S&P at the mid-year pass. It’s up 7.4% year-to-date. That’s after being down 7.3% at the end of March. And get this, since ChatGPT came out in November of 2022, the S&P is up over 80% (higher if you include reinvested dividends).

Which way now, America?

If the metrics could speak, the would say ‘lower.’ The index trades at 3.6 times sales (it was just over 3 before the big dip in 2021). CAPE Shiller is over 40. The P/E ratio is over 30. The dividend yield is barely above 1%. And the earnings yield (the inverse of the P/E ratio) is barely above 3%.

But metrics aren’t market timers. And they don’t talk.

We do, though! You’ll find all the best from BPR this last week below. It was great catching with Bill and Tom in London. More on that—and what’s next—this week.

Until then,

Dan

P.S. Paid subscribers should be sure to review Investment Director Tom Dyson’s July Monthly Strategy Report. Tom is as excited about red dirt as he’s about anything else in recent memory. See the full report for reasons why.

P.P.S. If you’re not a paying subscriber, why not? You’re missing all our best research. Fix that today and sign up here. We’ve given you the best deal we can offer. After July 4th, you won’t see it again.

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Saturday, June 20th, 2026

Denver, Colorado

Bigger than Japan? Bigger than the dot.com boom? The Nifty Fifty? Bigger, even, than the railroad boom of the 1800s?

Well no. Not the last one. I’m referring to the chart above from Bank of America. It shows that 39% of the market cap of the S&P 500 is now in ‘AI Stocks.’ That puts this market bubble—what our Investment Director Tom Dyson calls The Greatest Financial Experiment Ever—firmly in the death zone where other bubbles have run out of oxygen/liquidity.

This opens up a debate about what exactly you mean by AI. Is it true intelligence? A thinking machine? Or just a very powerful tool that increases productivity and discovery in a few key industries? For example, just this week Midjourney—a company previously famous for turning text prompts into moving images—announced it can now do full body ultrasounds that are better than an MRI without any radiation or magnetic fields. Amazing, if true.

For our purposes today, let’s stay that AI stocks are stocks whose market value is based on the proposition that Artificial Intelligence is the most transformative technological innovation since…well…the railroad. Maybe even electricity. Perhaps the printing press. Or even the wheel.

Those are all tremendous claims. Hyperbolic you might even say. But it takes a great deal of hyperbole to justify trillion dollar companies selling at nine, ten, and even twenty times sales (GOOGL, MSFT, AAPL, NVDA). Historically, those kinds of multiples mean very meager stock market returns for the next decade. And this time?

This time around, it depends on what AI will or won’t do. Our fearless leader, Bill Bonner, spent much of the past week digging into that question. You’ll find the four-part series he wrote below. Stay tuned for more next week.

Until then,

Dan Denning

P.S. The BPR brain trust—all three of us—will meet in London next week to discuss strategy for the second half of the year. If there are any big questions you think we should be asking, or would like to know the answer to, feel free to leave a comment below or send us an email to bpr@bonnerprivateresearch.com

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Sunday, June 07th, 2026

Laramie, Wyoming

By Dan Denning

Maybe you’ve seen the chart above. It shows that crossover point last year where central bank gold holdings became more valuable than official holdings of US Treasury bonds and bills and notes. Makes sense. Why?

Central banks have been net buyers of gold since 2018. The gold price is up roughly 240% in that time. Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022 and was quickly kicked out of SWIFT, the global payments system run/enforced by the US.

This ‘weaponization’ of the dollar alerted investors to the fact that US government bonds are not ‘risk free’. They may be a reserve asset on the balance sheet. But with high inflation, political dysfunction, and the willingness to use the dollar as a foreign policy cudgel, US bonds come with strings attached.

Gold does not. Its market value can fall too. So the chart above could reverse on a big dollar rally…or big gold fall. Or—more likely in my view—the current trend, the Primary Trend, may continue. As my old friend Charlie Morris once famously quipped, ‘Gold is a zero-coupon bond with no counter-party risk, inflation-linked, and issued by God.’

Couldn’t have said it better myself. And while I’m thinking about old friends in London, Dominic Frisby writes that he has a new book about gold. He actually mentioned it a few weeks ago and I forgot to tell you. So I’m telling you now. Dominic’s told me that he’s been told it’s the best book ever about gold, which is saying something.

It’s called The Secret History of Gold: Myth, Money, Politics, and Power.

I asked Dominic if he’d give me a short summary before I got stuck in this weekend. Here’s what he wrote back:

The book is a narrative history of gold as money, power and myth, tracing its role from the formation of the solar system to the modern financial system. It argues that gold’s unique physical properties – permanence, scarcity and incorruptibility – made it the natural foundation of monetary systems for thousands of years, and explains why its abandonment in the twentieth century enabled the expansion of state power and the erosion of currency stability. It also examines gold’s future role in a shifting global order, including the likelihood that China’s true gold reserves are far larger than officially reported – potentially by an order of magnitude – with significant implications for the next monetary regime.

He’s got a point. Quite a few of them, in fact. It also made me wonder…if all those oil exporting countries in the Persian Gulf are selling gold to make up for lost energy sales…who’s buying the gold?

And where would that show up in the official data…and when will it show up in the gold price?

More on that later this week at BPR. In the meantime, please check out Dominic’s book here. And enjoy the summary below of all the best research we published this week.

Dan

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Saturday, May 16th, 2026

Laramie, Wyoming

By Dan Denning

Uh oh. Don’t look now, but the yield on the 30-year US Treasury Bond is back over 5%. In the recent past, that’s been a warning signal from markets. But a warning for what?

First, that there are serious doubts about the ability of the Fed to control inflation or Congress to control spending. Almost $10 trillion worth of the US national debt—more than a third of all the debt held by the public—must be refinanced this year.

At higher interest rates, the interest expense on that debt will climb to over $2 trillion (the feds have spent over $600 billion on interest payments halfway through the fiscal year, which is the second most expensive item in the federal budget behind Social Security payments). And the government is on pace to rack up another $2 trillion in NEW debt this year.

Here’s the thing though. Higher interest rates aren’t just bad for bonds (as rates go up, bond prices go down) and borrowers. They’re bad for stocks too. Why?

In theory, higher interest rates raise the so-called ‘risk free’ rate of return on bonds (with $40 trillion in debt, there is serious doubt about whether US government bonds are ‘risk free,’ but bear with me). The higher ‘risk free’ rate in turn raises the ‘discount rate’ used in valuation models to price stocks. In simple terms, as the discount rate goes up, future cash flows are worth less today.

That’s why it’s bad for stocks. In fact the only way out of it is for fast-growing companies to grow earnings even faster. This means the mega-cap ten tech stocks driving this rally (AI plays) have to grow even faster…or be repriced. Repriced….lower.

It’s a long way down from here. Did you know that since the lows in mid-March, the S&P sector (XLK) is up almost 40%? That’s 40% in about six weeks! The only other time that’s ever happened is in the six weeks or so after the Covid lows in March of 2020…and AI wasn’t even really a ‘thing’ then.

This market is NOT priced for higher interest rates, which would push the discount rate up even further. Yet the inflation numbers this week (CPI and PPI) both showed that inflation is running hot. New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has his hands full (his first meetings as head of the Federal Open Market Committee is June 16th-17th…and futures markets say that there is a 64% probability that the Fed will have to HIKE interest rates before the end of the year.)

The President will go apoplectic if the Fed raises rates this summer. The closer it is to the mid-term elections, the more politically sensitive each Fed interest rate decision is. The smart money is on the Fed to do something sooner rather than later. What should YOU do in the meantime?

The BPR view on what you should do has not changed. Please review Investment Director Tom Dyson’s note from Wednesday if you haven’t already. Tom reckons the most likely way out of a debt bomb is currency debasement. That’s what we’re positioned for.

Are you?

Until next week,

Dan

P.S. Our friends at International Living believe gold’s next surge will take it to $10,000/oz. On Monday, they’re hosting a ‘masterclass’ for investors and speculators looking to profit. If that sounds like you, you can sign up here.

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Saturday, May 9th, 2026

By Dan Denning

Imagine barreling down a curving mountain road at breakneck speed. You’re out of control and things are happening faster than you can possibly react. Another big curve is around the corner. You hit the gas and pray.

That’s the only image I could think of when I read this report from the US Treasury after completing my Friday research note to BPR readers. It’s a quarterly report prepared by an unknown committee whose job it is to pay for America’s spending habit; a thankless task that involves one word and one word only: debt.

How much?

Do the math.

The government in Washington—the people driving our national fun bus—will run yearly deficits of over $2 trillion for the next ten years. Both the Congressional Budget Office and the White House Office of Budget Management Agree on this. By 2036, in just ten short years, it will be $3 trillion per a year.

That’s nearly $25 trillion in NEW debt in the next ten years. That’s on top of the $40 trillion we already have. A minimum of $65 trillion in total debt. At that rate, the national debt will be close to 200% of GDP. And the worst part?

The interest on that debt will be over $16 trillion over ten years. It’s around $1 trillion per year now. It will be $2 trillion in ten years. That’s money that doesn’t build a single bridge or buy a single bullet or pay a new retiree’s Social Security.

Even if you receive some of that interest as income on bonds you own, do you really think it will offset the decline in the value of the US dollar? Or that the interest income you earn will be greater than the rate of inflation? Do you? Really?

Everyone knows this is unsustainable. But Washington acts as if it is a problem for later. This is a big mistake for investors and savers. And it’s not true either. Why else do you think the gold price has doubled in the last two years?

We’ll have more on gold, debt, Iran, AI, and ‘megapolitics’ this coming week at BPR. In the meantime, please enjoy the summary of all the research we published in the last week.

Regards,

Dan

P.S. Despite the scale of the Federal debt problem, you’re not entirely helpless. Your wealth, dignity, your freedom and your family…these are all things that can be preserved with prudent planning for the years ahead. Better start now though. My old friend Porter Stansberry has just released a new book on Amazon to help. You can buy it here. It’s uncomfortable reading for patriots. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read it and prepare accordingly anyway.

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Laramie, Wyoming

We have a special treat for you as Holy Week begins today with Palm Sunday. Edward Bonner sent in a letter following a quick trip to Zurich. It’s a deep dive into the energy and precious metals markets. You’ll find that below—along with the rest of the research published this week at BPR.

Enjoy!

Dan

P.S. A few weeks ago I picked up a two volume history of the West, beginning with the ancient world and Christendom (volume one) and followed up with the modern and contemporary world (volume two). It’s a great set called The Golden Thread. It turns out the authors have started a newsletter as well. It’s not financial but well worth your while. You can find it here.

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Sunday, March 15th, 2026

Laramie, Wyoming

Rome didn’t immediately, or at least formally, become an Empire on this day in 44 BC. But the assassination of Julius Caesar did unleash quite a bit of chaos and civil war. The Lex Titia was passed in 43 BC and created the Second Triumvirate (Octavian, who would later become Augustus, Marc Antony, and Marcus Lepidus). Octavian defeated Marc Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the beginning of the Empire proper is officially dated at 27 BC.

Where does America stand today in the year of its 250th birthday? The end of Empire? The beginning? Or somewhere in the middle of a long decline, salted and peppered with inflation, financial insecurity, and the military in a constant state of war?

History aside, there’s a full slate of macro data scheduled for release in the coming week; the NY Empire State Manufacturing Index, retail sales, and pending home sales. But the big one is Wednesday is the Fed rate cut decision.

Here’s a question: If the oil price is at $150/barrel, could the Fed actually raise rates this week?

We’ll find out soon. In the meantime, please enjoy the summary of all the research we published at BPR this week.

Until tomorrow,

Dan

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Sunday, March 08th, 2026

Denver, Colorado

by Dan Denning

Bull markets become bear markets when liquidity matters more than valuations. It starts to matter more because there is less of it. First a little less. Then suddenly nowhere to be found.

BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, with $14 trillion in assets under management. Blocking $1.2 billion in redemptions from one of its private credit funds isn’t a catastrophe. Not yet at least. But we’ve got our eyes on it.

BlackRock, Blue Owl, Blackstone…these are the names in private credit we’re starting to hear more about. These investments promise higher returns to high net worth investors. But the money is illiquid. So what comes next?

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Credit events are like infectious diseases. They are bad enough for those that have them. But when they jump from one carrier to the next, from private markets to public markets, that’s when you get bigger problems.

If the liquidity disease moves from private credit to publicly listed asset managers…and then to banks…and then to insurance companies…well then valuations suddenly matter a lot…and mean reversion (a stock market crash) becomes a real risk in 2026.

But I’m sure it’s ‘contained.’ That’s what Ben Bernanke told us about subprime mortgages in 2007. And it’s not like panic is contagious in financial markets, is it?

Meanwhile, the US war machine is hitting up the private sector to ramp up production of critical minerals and build out the domestic supply chain as quickly as possible. Uncle Sam’s Defense Industrial Base Consortium identified thirteen critical minerals and metals it wants US industry to…secure.

By ‘secure’ I mean, build out quickly a domestic supply chain for mining and processing these elements for the Pentagon. The critical minerals in question are: arsenic, bismuth, gadolinium, germanium, graphite, hafnium, nickel, samarium, tungsten, vanadium, ⁠ytterbium, yttrium and zirconium.

This is all part of ‘Project Vault’, the $12 billion plan to stockpile elements and metals the US depends on the rest of the world for (mostly China and Russia). The Department of War announced a $27 million investment in US Antimony Corporation [UAMY]. Among other things, antimony is alloyed with lead to make bullets harder. I first wrote about UAMY in PM Dawn, just before Christmas last year.

We’ll continue to track this trend at BPR. I may even ask Bill about having the government as an investment partner when I speak with him next week. We’ll be sitting down for our latest quarterly State of the World interview. If you have a question you’d like me to ask Bill, leave in the comments below or send it to bpr@bonnerprivateresearch.com

Until tomorrow,

Dan

P.S. The tariff news got buried by the Iran war last week. But the Congressional Budget Office quietly put out a note this weekend that the Supreme Court ruling would add $2 trillion in deficits over the next ten years ($1.6 trillion in ‘primary’ deficits and $400 billion in interest expense). The US dollar could not be reached for comment. Gold, being an inert metal, also had nothing to say but currently trades $5,181/oz.

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Sunday, March 1st, 2026

Scottsdale, Arizona

By Dan Denning

The oil price quadrupled during the Yom Kippur war and the OPEC oil embargo in 1973-1974. Gold more than doubled in the same time. It got a ‘safe haven’ bid AND an inflation bid during the same time frame (from $64/oz in early 1973 to $195/oz by the end of 1974).

In the second oil crisis of the 1970s, during the Iranian revolution, oil prices doubled again. Gold was already in the end stages of a multi-year bull market. But the last stage was spectacular. It started 1979 at around $216/oz. It finished the year at $512/oz. And then it peaked at $850/oz in January of 1980.

Bad times and good times.

We’ll know later today whether the financial markets think 2026 is more like 1973 or more like 1979. It may be like neither. If the Iranian regime is replaced by something more Persian and less Islamic/theocratic, the oil price could end the year much lower.

And gold? We’ll be watching it all this week, monitoring the situation. Paid subscribers can look for the March Monthly Strategy Report on Wednesday. Until tomorrow!

Dan

P.S. Here’s an interesting question: Are potential IPOs from Anthropic and OpenAI more or less valuable now that the US government seems to have deemed AI ‘critical’ to national security and the war effort? If AI models are now part of America’s ‘Arsenal of Democracy,’ the commercial upside of the technology (whatever it ends up being) may be limited.

Bull market peaks are often accompanied by highly anticipated IPOs. I thought that might be the case with OpenAI and Anthropic both rushing toward public listings this year. But if the US government restricts the development and proliferation of AI models based on national security concerns, the value (and size) of future AI cash flows from these companies is suddenly up in the air.

That’s not good for a stock market that’s been riding the wave of AI hype for four years. And with bond issuance from AI firms on track to hit another record high in 2026, you have all the classic signs of an investment bubble with billions in mis-allocated capital.

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Sunday, February 15th, 2026

Laramie, Wyoming

By Dan Denning

Do you have a fever for more copper? A few years ago, sitting in the crowd at Rick Rule’s Natural Resource Investment Symposium in Boca Raton, Florida, I had to restrain myself from loading up massively on Freeport-McMoran, an obvious global copper play.

But there are less obvious plays, which several of the speakers at the show mentioned. I’m curious to hear what they’re saying this year. And I’m wondering, given the AI boom and the government pivot to ‘critical minerals,’ if copper might not be this year’s silver. If so, how do we play it?

First up, S&P reckons copper demand will grow by 50% by 2040 to 42 million tonnes a year. Current global supply is around 23 million tonnes. It can take almost two decades to bring a new mine into production (regulations/permitting…and that’s IF you find a good location). And now ‘demand’ is surging with AI, EVs, and the ‘net zero’ move to electrification of everything.

For what it’s worth, I’d expect the demand side to be revised this year. EVs are too expensive in North America and Europe for the market to get much bigger than it already is (where socialist policy makers don’t want people to have cars anyway…and people who buy cars don’t seem to want EVs anymore).

And the ‘net zero’ political and social death cult is running face first into the brick wall of physical reality. Renewables can’t generate reliable base load power (in Spain, they’ve gone so far as to make their entire electric grid unreliable and prone to blackouts). And Germany’s Chancellor Friederich Merz admitted publicly that the Marxist-Green phase out of German nuclear power as ‘a serious strategic mistake.’

But there’s no doubt demand is surging and supply is not. It takes capital to make things happen. And it will take much higher prices (even if demand from EVs and ‘net zero’ is currently overstated). This academic paper suggests that copper prices will have to double from here in order to justify the capital investment needed to bring new mines into production.

You wouldn’t guess any of that from the chart above. That’s Freeport-McMorRan [FCX]. It’s one of the names that came up at Rick’s show a few years ago. It wasn’t doing much of anything in September of last year.

And then there was a tragic accident at the Grasberg mine in Indonesia, where 800,00 tonnes of mud flooded underground operations. The accident, in which seven men lost their life, highlighted how vulnerable global copper supply is on a few big mines and countries (Grasberg accounts for 3% of global copper production each year).

Turns out that was the dip to buy. And that has me wondering if we’ll have a similar opportunity in FCX (or copper in general) later this year. As you may know, investors reverse to copper as ‘Dr Copper’ because its a proxy for the health and strength of the global economy.

If we get a deflationary dip this spring—falling asset prices because of concern that AI is going to devastate wages…or that AI capex has been overdone—that may be our window of opportunity in copper. We’ll stay on the story. In the meantime, there’s one other, megapolitical aspect to address.

The US government doesn’t seem overly concerned about a disruption of copper supply threatening GDP growth in 2026 or any time soon. But that doesn’t mean they won’t start stockpiling it anyway. And what do you think US Secretary of State Marco Rubio meant when he said this at the Munich Security Conference this week (emphasis added is mine):

Deindustrialization was not inevitable. It was a conscious policy choice, a decades-long economic undertaking that stripped our nations of their wealth, of their productive capacity, and of their independence. And the loss of our supply chain sovereignty was not a function of a prosperous and healthy system of global trade. It was foolish. It was a foolish but voluntary transformation of our economy that left us dependent on others for our needs and dangerously vulnerable to crisis…the work of this new alliance…should be focused on…creating a Western supply chain for critical minerals not vulnerable to extortion from other powers...

This idea of ‘supply chain sovereignty’ is not new. But in the old, post World War II ‘rules based’ order there was no need for every nation to stockpile critical minerals and commodities (beyond, perhaps, oil and metals needed by the military). The world was a marketplace. And trade provided plenty for all.

That was the old world. What will this new world end up looking like? Is ‘supply chain sovereignty’ even a realistic and achievable ambition? Is it already too late?

For investors, the most important question is what should you do about it right now? More on that in the common week from BPR. In the meantime, please enjoy the brief summary below of all the research we published this week.

Until tomorrow,

Dan

P.S. There’s a megapoltical aspect to AI we’re just coming to grips with. Take this recent quotation from Palantir CEO Alex Karp: ‘There are dangers in AI. The reality is, there are only two cultures that are going to win in the next year— us, or China. If we are not the ones controlling the violence, we will not be dictating the rule of law.’

He who controls the ‘logic of violence’ controls the world, according to Jim Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg’s theory of megapolitics. The ‘logic of violence’ is an equation that includes the cost, returns, scale, and effectiveness of violence to amass power and control people.

In the Age of Agriculture, it meant controlling land. Then, gunpowder and the printing press decentralized both power and knowledge (lowering the cost of violence). In the Industrial era, States rolled out conscription to build massive standing armies, armored by powerful private companies. It resulted in ruinous state on state violence and the massive mis-allocation of natural and human resources for the purposes of destruction. Tens of millions people died.

JDD and LRM thought technology in the 21st century would change ‘the logic of violence’ in favor of the individual (hence the name of the book, The Sovereign Individual). They argued that the digital revolution would lead to smaller government, the collapse of the Welfare State, and a new era of empowered, encrypted sovereign individuals.

Well…the State fought back. It’s used new technological tools to reassert its control of violence. But what IS the new ‘logic of violence?’ What IS violence in the algorithm world (drone swarms, robot soldiers, predictive policing/targeting, digital censorship/de-platforming)? And who’s going to control and wield that violence?

More on this in the coming months. And more from Karp’s dangerous view. Feel free to share your thoughts below. Were JDD and LRM about technology leading to a freedom revolution? Or were they just early? And does the phrase ‘rule of law’ have any real meaning when an all-powerful State is wielding an all-knowing AI with violence?

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Sunday, February 1st, 2026

Laramie, Wyoming

It was little noted in the Western press, after Friday’s bloodbath in precious metals, that the price for physical metal in Asia hardly budged. If you’re taking delivery of silver in Shanghai—for your factory, your safety deposit box, or to hoard—it’s going to cost you. Not so in London and New York. What will this week bring?

The data don’t support the idea that higher margins on Comex are, at least by themselves, responsible for squeezing out ‘speculative longs.’ That’s the story they’d like to tell, that silver was overbought by manic FOMO trading. If it’s not true, though, I’d expect to see the price rising again later this week (once Asia opens, the paper markets in London and New York lose control of the narrative).

Meanwhile, Palantir [PLTR] reports this week. With a market capitalization of $350 billion, Palantir isn’t the biggest AI or tech stock. But it’s one of the most expensive. The trailing P/E is 350, the forward P/E is around 150 (depending on earnings estimates), and it trades at 89 times sales. Have a look at the chart.

It’s ‘oversold’ on an RSI basis (below 30). But the recent price action has dropped the share price below the 200-day moving average. It’s rolling over. But is the bull market sparked by AI in October of 2022 dying? Tune in for more this week…

Dan

P.S. Nerd Alert: Palantir is named after the lost ‘seeing stones’ of Middle Earth in JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. In Tolkien’s world, the stones were a kind of super powered wireless device, allowing communication over long distances and even the ability to see different versions of the future.

But not THE future…because what the stones showed was influenced by the will of whoever ‘commanded’ them. To a weak-willed watcher, the stones might show you only what someone else wanted you to see. They could mislead, deceive, and manipulate.

Markets are always discounting different versions of the future. Narratives compete for investor buy-in. There will be a point when investors realize the huge investment in AI is the largest mis-allocation of capital in recent history…and re-price the ‘hyperscalers’ and Palantir accordingly. The valuations suggest it is inevitable. But is it imminent?

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Sunday, January 25th, 2026

Laramie, Wyoming

By Dan Denning

It’s a big week ahead to close out the first month of the year (already!). Investment Director Tom Dyson will publish the February Monthly Strategy Report on Wednesday for paid subscribers. We’ve got a new update on the Doom Index. And of course analysis of the key ratios in the markets, especially Dow/Gold (by which time gold may have hit $5,000/oz and the Dow 50,000).

More earnings kick off tomorrow that give us an insight into the see-saw battle between the energy sector and the tech sector. Apple [AAPL], Microsoft [MSFT], Meta [META], and Tesla [TSLA] all report tomorrow. But so do ExxonMobil [XOM] and Chevron [CVX]. And throw in Visa [V] and Mastercard [MA] for a look at consumer credit and health.

The chart above shows the cycles between the tech and energy sectors over the last 27 years. It includes the dot.com boom in 2000, then the great bull run in oil up to mid 2008 (oil peaked at around $147/barrel in July of that year). You’ll note that the current ratio is far below the tech peak in 2021, and hasn’t been able to hold the same level of the 2000 peak.

What next? Higher oil? Lower tech? AI or crude oil? Or some combination of both. Look for what Tom has to say when he reviews the new energy stocks we added to the Official List late last year (for free readers, the Official List is where keep tabs on all open investment recommendations at BPR…there are 14 positions on the List now, with eight listed as ‘BUY’ and six listed as ‘HOLD’).

And don’t forget Wednesday! We’ll find out whether America still has a nominally independent central bank. The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee will announce its first interstate rate decision of 20265.

Higher? Lower? Will there be dissent? What would you do?

Will Fed Chairman Jerome Powell say anything about the recent grand jury investigation into his testimony in front of Congress last year? Did you know three Fed governors (Richard Clarida, Randal Quarles, and Adriana Kugler) have resigned while being investigated in ethics probes under Powell's tenure as chair? And will anyone ask Powell about what gold and silver are saying about the creditworthiness of the US government as another government shutdown looms?

All that and more coming up this week at BPR. In the meantime, enjoy your frigid Sunday and a review of all the research we published last week.

Until tomorrow,

Dan