Videos & Podcast Of The Week
Russian Sanctions And The Dark Fleet, S&P 15,000 & A Quick Victory Lap On One Of My 2025 Predictions
There have been a ton of different things going on this week, whether it’s the fires in California, more talk about Greenland and Canada, oil heading higher on news of more sanctions against Russia, and yields spiking across the West. I’ll be talking more about that oil, bonds, and everything else in my 2025 post on markets, but we aren’t even two weeks into the new year and things are already getting interesting in financial markets.
The Joe Rogan Experience w/ Mel Gibson
I wrote last week that I thought the narrative around COVID would be an issue to watch in 2025, and I thought we would also start to hear about Ivermectin and Fenbendazole as a potential cancer treatment. I don’t want to take a premature victory lap, but I didn’t think Mel Gibson would be the first one to talk about Ivermectin, Fenbendazole, and the COVID narrative. I figured we would see someone like Dr. Makis get more airtime, but this was definitely an entertaining conversation. They also discussed the fires in California, movies, and other stuff going on in the world.
The Dark Fleet w/ David Tannenbaum
I don’t want to leave anyone hanging, so I also wanted to include a couple podcasts that might be timely for readers. This episode of the HC Commodities podcast was focused on the dark fleet for oil and products tankers. Oil was up big on Friday after news that the Treasury is adding sanctions against two Russian oil majors, as well as 183 tankers in the so-called dark fleet. It might be time to discuss the three month transition period between administrations with some of the moves made by the outgoing Biden administration, but that’s a separate discussion.
The podcast discusses the type of ship that ends up in the dark fleet (typically older vessels), what routes they typically run, and how they spoof their transponders to try to avoid detection. Roughly 10% of tankers are in the dark fleet, and this podcast would be an interesting primer for anyone looking into tankers and how sanctions are avoided. They also discuss ship to ship transfers, and how sanctions and insurance have an impact on the sector. Whether the sanctions are a good or bad idea is up for debate, but I think it’s safe to say that oil and other products will find it’s way to the market, even if it’s from Russia, Venezuela, or Iran.
Monetary Matters w/ Mel Mattison
This was one of the more interesting videos I listened to this week, complete with several predictions of what the path forward might look like for markets. Depending on what happens, Mel thinks we could see 15,000 on the S&P by the end of Trump’s term. While I think that would be tough from current valuations, I do agree with his take that the US government is stuck between a rock and a hard place. I also agree that inflation is going to be the release valve so to speak. They also discussed gold, bitcoin, and oil, but the whole conversation will definitely give readers food for thought.