Videos Of The Week
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year's & A Couple Videos Worth Watching If You Have SpareTime This Week
I’ll keep it short and sweet this week because I know everyone is going to be busy this week with Christmas, but I wanted to highlight a couple things that caught my eye this week. I think the next month might hold some surprises on the geopolitical front. This week it was drones hitting civilian targets in Russia. A couple weeks ago it was the fall of the incumbent Syrian government. Who knows happens over the next month, but I have a feeling we might see another big event sooner rather than later.
I also thought some of the noise Trump has been making about the Panama Canal is interesting. It seems ridiculous now, but if we see any changes to how the Canal is run (an important artery for the global economy), it will be interesting to see if that has an impact. I’ll talk more about Trump’s second term and what the geopolitical landscape might look like in my 2025 post, but we have one month to go until the inauguration, and I’m sure Trump (or his social media team) will manage to stir things up on social media at least once or twice in that time.
Esgian Offshore Update
If you’re looking for an overview of the offshore oil services sector, you will enjoy this one. They talked about activity in the North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Africa, and how rig contracting slowed, with older 6G equipment having a tougher time getting contracts. They are expecting some consolidation in the deepwater space in 2025, which lines up with the M&A rumors for Transocean RIG 0.00%↑ and Seadrill SDRL 0.00%↑. The cycle hasn’t played out as quickly as some investors thought it might, but they still have a strong outlook longer term for deepwater as well as jackups. For jackups, they discussed the uncertainty created by Aramco suspensions and the preference for higher spec jackups, especially in markets outside of Middle East. They covered everything from day rates, rig values, and the order book for new builds, so if you need a quick update on how things are going in offshore, this one is worth watching.
Mining Stock Daily w/ Grant Williams
I enjoy listening to any podcast I can find with Grant Williams because he doesn’t get too focused in on the short term market moves. He’s more focused on big picture structural changes in markets and geopolitics. He talked about the political sea change (not just in the US) being a reaction against the incumbents. Trump 2.0 was a topic, but he’s not expecting a revenge tour from his second term. They spent a bit of time on the cultural mood shift, but as far as markets and economies go, Europe looks like they are in a tight spot, along with Australian and Canadian Real Estate.
It definitely looks like a speculator’s market, and Grant pointed out that there isn’t much focus on valuations and a lot of people are chasing momentum (or memecoins). He thinks we could potentially see a major breakdown of the monetary system and talked about the potential for a recession in 2025. One thing that stood out was one of the things he said about a secular regime change in markets. I’m paraphrasing, but basically Grant says that inflation, unemployment, and rates are three things that he is watching. He thinks policy makers will probably be forced to pick two out of those three to prioritize moving forward. We will see what happens, but he definitely gives listeners some food for thought.